2021/01/13 by Fabio Giavazzi, Giavazzi, Fabio, Samuele Spini +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #physics.bio-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2101.05133
arxiv created 2021/01/13 · arxiv updated 2021/01/14
We investigate theoretically the ballistic motion of small legged insects and legless larvae after a jump. Notwithstanding their completely different morphologies and jumping strategies, these legged and legless animals have convergently evolved to jump with a take-off angle of 60^∘, which differs significantly from the leap angle of 45^∘ that allows reaching maximum range. We show that in the presence of uniformly-distributed random obstacles the probability of a successful jump is directly proportional to the area under the trajectory. In the presence of negligible air drag, the probability is maximized by a take-off angle of 60^∘. The numerical calculation of the trajectories shows that they are significantly affected by air drag, but the maximum probability of a successful jump still occurs for a take-off angle of 59-60^∘ in a wide range of the dimensionless Reynolds and Froude numbers that control the process. We discuss the implications of our results for the exploration of unknown environments such as planets and disaster scenarios by using jumping robots.