Welcome to RevealFlight project

Collaboration with Xavi Bou

The project RevealFlight has recently started a collaboration with the artist/photograph Xavi Bou. Following his work on bird "trails" and our effort in understanding bird flight, we aim at "making the invisible visible". More info (in French) in the UCLouvain cultural journal .

Workshop Modelling of Bird Flight

We are pleased to say that the workshop of last January was a success ! A lot of interesting topics were discussed in the talks and in informal discussions during the breaks. 

Workshop announcement: Modeling of Bird Flight

In the framework of the ARC collaborative project “RevealFlight”, we organize a scientific workshop on the modeling of bird flight. This workshop is intended to be accessible to a large audience of scientists, covering aspects of biomechanics, (computational) fluid dynamics, collective behavior, and biological modeling.

Design of a numerical model for the simulation of bird flight - MEED Seminar

Although engineers have been inspired by it for decades, the mechanisms of bird flight are still poorly understood. Existing research analyses the flight to find the key to its performances but it remains elusive. In this presentation, a numerical model for the simulation of bird flight is presented. Such a model can lead to a better understanding of bird flight by its synthesis.

The RevealFlight Project

The RevealFlight project aims at shedding light on the efficiency optimization mechanisms deployed by biological flyers. We will focus on birds, and in particular on migratory birds, which are known to exhibit such efficiency-seeking mechanisms at several levels, while maintaining relatively stable flight conditions, leading to impressive results.

"Flapping for migrating: energy expenditure quantification" by G. Vitucci, 27/08/19 (ASAB 2019)

Gennaro presented his joint work with Philippe Chatelain and Renaud Ronsse during this years' exciting conference organized by the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Modern high-resolution technology allows tracking migrating birds over long distances. Depending on species, duration of displacement, environmental conditions, social organization, etc., different flock topology and flight dynamics arise.

The current work focuses on flapping flight. In particular, it intends to unveil observed flock spatio-temporal synchronization through the quantification of the mechanical power required for flying in group - and related disparity in energy consumption between leader and follower.

 

"A (multiple-)shooting approach aimed to study nonlinear dynamics of bird flight", G. Ducci, 15/03/19 (MEED seminar)

Gianmarco gave an overview about the mathematical tool he has been developing, aimed to study trimmed configuration of bird flight. 

Within the seminar, he presented the validation of the Multiple-shoting code, and its application in order to study flight dynamics equations of motion.

"Fluid dynamical interactions in organized bird flock flight" G. Vitucci, 01/03/19 (MEED seminar)

Collective flight of birds has kept humans puzzled for millennia. Nevertheless the first attempts at studying it in a rigorous framework have been carried out only during recent decades. Among the most asked scientific questions is the aerodynamic advantage of certain observed flock topologies and dynamics for long distance journeys. In order to quantify the inter-individual mechanical interaction we develop a novel computational approach which is inspired to the well established lifting line method used in fixed-wing aircraft studies.

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