The RevealFlight Concerted Research Action 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.
At the level of an individual flyer, biomechanical and aerodynamic factors have long been identified but their interconnection has never been studied in details. On the one hand, the morphology and the neuro-muscular configuration of the bird can be seen as the frame and actuation layer that realize the gait of the bird. On the other hand, this gait is also meant to exploit aerodynamic phenomena at various scales: a bird indeed achieves lift through the unsteady aerodynamics of its flapping wings but also through fine-scale flow control mechanisms by means of feathers and wing compliance. At the level of the flock, it is well known that migratory birds adopt flight formations in which downstream flock members exploit the upwash regions of upstream birds' wakes resulting in efficiency gains. But the mechanisms by which they self-organize to achieve these gains are not fully understood.
The over-arching objective of the RevealFlight project is to provide an improved comprehensive understanding of bird flocks flight by capturing the interplay between the physics, the bio-engineering disciplines, and the problematic of control and self-organization.
To that end, RevealFlight proposes to synthesize the flight mechanics of birds into a unified framework, combining biomechanical, sensory, aerodynamic and social interaction models, in order to reproduce the flying gaits and the interactions within a flock. This multi-disciplinary and fully coupled approach brings several advantages. It enforces consistency between the biomechanical stresses and the sustentation forces and enables the unified treatment of flight as a problem that encompasses all the physics ranging from muscle activation to flow turbulence.
More information, as well as job openings, are available on the RevealFlight website.