Detecting exotic wakes with hydrodynamic sensors

Understand

Wake sensing for bioinspired robotic swimmers has been the focus of much investigation owing to its relevance to locomotion control, especially in the context of schooling and target following.

• Many successful wake sensing strategies have been devised based on models of von Karman-type wakes; however, such wake sensing technologies are invalid in the context of exotic wake types that commonly arise in swimming locomotion.
• Indeed, exotic wakes can exhibit markedly different dynamics, and so must be modeled and sensed accordingly.
• Here, we propose a general wake detection protocol for distinguishing between wake types from measured hydrodynamic signals alone.