Welcome

Welcome to the web page for the Flow Simulation and Analysis Group's study of insect flight. The Laboratory for Bio-Inspired Locomotion is located in the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

This project focuses on analyzing the aerodynamic torque created by Painted Lady butterflies. The basic idea behind our approach is that the aerodynamic torque can be estimated by a combination of high-speed videogrammetry and dissection based on mass measurements of the insect. Subsequently, we can estimate the relative importance of aerodynamic and inertial torques on different maneuvers. The techniques developed in this project have been extended to study upside-down landing dynamics of fruit flies.

Working on this project is Tiras Lin, a mechanical engineering undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University, under the supervision of Prof. Rajat Mittal (MechE).

Recent News

November 2012
Poster Presentation:
Lin, T., Mittal, R., Zheng, L., & Hedrick, T. (2012, November). The Significance of Moment-of-Inertia Variation in Insect Flight Maneuvers. Poster presented at the ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, Houston, TX.

October 2012
Journal paper:
Lin, T., Zheng, L., Hedrick, T., & Mittal, R. (2012). The significance of moment-of-inertia variation in flight manoeuvres of butterflies. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 7(4), 044002. doi:10.1088/1748-3182/7/4/044002

Summer 2012
Insect flight dynamics research featured in: Johns Hopkins Magazine and Johns Hopkins Engineering Magazine.

May 2012
Poster Presentation:
Lin, T., & Mittal, R. (2012, May). Fly on a Wall: A Combined Experimental-Computational Study of the Aero and Body Dynamics of Landing in a Fruit-Fly. Poster presented at the JHU Provost's Undergraduate Research Awards Ceremony. Baltimore, MD.

May 2012
Insect flight dynamics research featured in Inside Science TV (American Institute of Physics).

April 2012
Tiras Lin featured in B (Baltimore Sun) 10 to Watch Under 30.

March 2012
Insect flight dynamics research featured in Revista Ciência Hoje das Crianças (Brazil).

February 2012
Insect flight dynamics research featured in: The Huffington Post, The New York Times Green Blog, Popular Science, Scientific American, MSNBC Future of Technology, Daily Mail (U.K.), Yahoo News India, Futurity, and CBC. The Johns Hopkins news release is here, with video.

November 2011
Conference Presentation:
Lin, T., Mittal, R., Zheng, L., & Hedrick, T. (2011, November). Understanding the Role of Moment-of-Inertia Variation in Insect Flight Maneuvers. Presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, 56(18), Baltimore, MD.

November 2011
Tiras Lin wins second-prize for Best Student Presentation in the Undergraduate Category at the AIAA Region I Young Professional, Student, and Education Conference 2011 for his presentation titled, "Understanding the Role of Moment-of-Inertia Variation in Insect Flight Maneuvers."

May 2011
Tiras Lin has been selected to receive the Fall 2011 Johns Hopkins University Provost's Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) for his proposal titled, "Fly on a Wall: A Combined Experimental-Computational Study of the Aero and Body Dynamics of Landing in a Fruit-Fly."

October 2010
Tiras Lin wins third-prize for Best Student Presentation in the Undergraduate Category at the AIAA Region I Young Professional, Student, and Education Conference 2010 for his presentation titled, "Study of Insect Flight Dynamics Using High-Speed Videogrammetry."