Speaker:
Date of Talk:
10/07/11
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Cornell University
Title:
Flight of the Fruit Fly
Abstract
There comes a time in each of our lives where we grab a thick section of the morning paper, roll
it up and set off to do battle with one of nature’s most accomplished aviators - the fly. If
however, instead of swatting we could magnify our view and experience the world in slow motion we
would be privy to a world-class ballet full of graceful figure-eight wing strokes, effortless
pirouettes, and astonishing acrobatics. After watching such a magnificent display, who among us
could destroy this virtuoso? How do flies produce acrobatic maneuvers with such precision? What
control mechanisms do they need to maneuver? More abstractly, what problem are they solving as
they fly? Despite pioneering studies of flight control in tethered insects, robotic wing
experiments, and fluid dynamics simulations that have revealed basic mechanisms for unsteady
force generation during steady flight, the answers to these questions remain elusive. In this
talk I will discuss our strategy for investigating these unanswered questions. I will begin by
describing our automated apparatus for recording the free flight of fruit flies and a new
technique called Hull Reconstruction Motion Tracking (HRMT) for backing out the wing and body
kinematics. I will then show that these techniques can be used to reveal the underlying
mechanisms for flight maneuvers, wing actuation, and flight stability. Finally, I will comment
on the implications of these discoveries for investigations aimed at elucidating the evolution
of flight.
