Biomimetic ciliary propulsion using flexible pneumatic microactuators

Biomimicry - the science of drawing inspiration from natural organisms and processes - has been a long standing fascination of mankind. Nature’s selection principles have often evolved very elegant solutions for problems that engineers find challenging to solve. Some of the most fascinating biologic processes take place at the microscale, and have been inaccessible to engineers to date. However, with the advent of micro and nanotechnology, we now have a new set of tools to better imitate biologic microsystems. In particular, this project will look into copying cilia driven propulsion mechanisms. Cilia are nature’s answer to locomotion in liquids at very small scales where fluids are typically in a laminar regime. In this regime, viscous forces are dominating, and fluid propulsion requires mechanisms that are very different from those we are familiar with in our everyday lives. The KU Leuven has a long standing expertise in the fabrication of microsystems, and recently developed a new type of micromotor which is ideally suited for replicating the beating motion of cilia. Starting from existing biological observations and physical models, this project will study the complex interaction between neighbouring cilia, and the insights from these theoretical models will be validated by new biomimetic cilia arrays. Finally, the developed cilia arrays will be integrated in biomimetic swimming robots which may find applications in industrial inspection and minimally invasive surgery.