Meeting Abstract

10.2  Tuesday, Jan. 4  “Falling with Style” – The Role of Wing Inertia in Bat Flight Maneuvers BERGOU, AJ*; RISKIN, DK; TAUBIN, G; SWARTZ, SM; BREUER, K; Brown University attila_bergou@brown.edu

The remarkable maneuverability of flying animals results from precise movements of their highly specialized wings. Among fliers, bats have evolved a particularly impressive capacity to control their flight. This adeptness is, in part, determined by bats’ ability to modulate their wing shape through many independently controlled joints. They are able to manipulate their wing area, angle of attack, and camber to control their flight through altering aerodynamic forces on their wings. Bat wings, however, also contain many bony elements and thus the ratio of bats’ wing inertia to their body inertia is larger than it is for nearly all other extant flyers. In fact, the inertial changes alone that result from bats’ wing movements can significantly alter their in-flight body kinematics. Here, we show how bats are able to help control flight maneuvers by modulating the inertia of their wings. Using a novel tracking algorithm, we measure the wing and body kinematics of bats performing various flips. We then use a dynamical model of a bat to show the role that modulation of their inertia plays in these maneuvers.