Natural flyers and swimmers such as birds, insects, and fish have fascinated us for centuries. There exists a substantial body of literature on animal locomotion. So far, the majority of the studies were published in biology-oriented journals. However, in recent years, the situation is rapidly changing as engineers and physical scientists have been enthusiastically learning from nature and implementing similar or improved concepts in human-made machines. With advances in miniaturization, first principles-based computational mechanics, precision instrumentation, materials sciences, and multidisciplinary approach, biomimetics is now an area of active research.
To help offer updated summaries of some of recent progress in this area to the mechanics community, we have collected five articles to form this special AMR issue of Animal Locomotion in Fluids, and Its Mimicry. The articles were among the invited papers presented in the 2nd International Symposium on Aqua Bio-Mechanisms (ISABMEC 2003), held in Honolulu on September 14–17,...
