@article {10.1098/rsta.2020.0116, title = {Nutations in growing plant shoots as a morphoelastic flutter instability}, journal = {Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A}, volume = {379}, year = {2021}, type = {Journal article}, abstract = {

Growing plant shoots exhibit spontaneous oscillations that Darwin observed, and termed "circumnutations". Recently, they have received renewed attention for the design and optimal actuation of bioinspired robotic devices. We discuss a possible interpretation of these spontaneous oscillations as a Hopf-type bifurcation in a growing morphoelastic rod. Using a three-dimensional model and numerical simulations, we analyse the salient features of this flutter-like phenomenon (e.g. the characteristic period of the oscillations) and their dependence on the model details (in particular, the impact of choosing different growth models) finding that, overall, these features are robust with respect to changes in the details of the growth model adopted.

}, doi = {10.1098/rsta.2020.0116}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2020.0116}, author = {Daniele Agostinelli and Giovanni Noselli and Antonio DeSimone} } @article {Agostinelli2020.07.06.188987, title = {Nutations in plant shoots: Endogenous and exogenous factors in the presence of mechanical deformations}, journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science}, volume = {12}, year = {2021}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, type = {Journal article}, abstract = {

We present a three-dimensional morphoelastic rod model capable to describe the morphogenesis of growing plant shoots driven by differential growth. We discuss the evolution laws for endogenous oscillators, straightening mechanisms, and reorientations to directional cues, such as gravitropic reactions governed by the avalanche dynamics of statoliths. We use this model to investigate the role of elastic deflections due to gravity loading in circumnutating plant shoots. We show that, in the absence of endogenous cues, pendular and circular oscillations arise as a critical length is attained, thus suggesting the occurrence of an instability triggered by exogenous factors. When also oscillations due to endogenous cues are present, their weight relative to those associated with the instability varies in time as the shoot length and other biomechanical properties change. Thanks to the simultaneous occurrence of these two oscillatory mechanisms, we are able to reproduce a variety of complex behaviors, including trochoid-like patterns, which evolve into circular orbits as the shoot length increases, and the amplitude of the exogenous oscillations becomes dominant.

}, issn = {1664-462X}, doi = {10.3389/fpls.2021.608005}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2021.608005}, author = {Daniele Agostinelli and Antonio DeSimone and Giovanni Noselli} } @article {mine-02-02-011, title = {MicroMotility: State of the art, recent accomplishments and perspectives on the mathematical modeling of bio-motility at microscopic scales}, journal = {Mathematics in Engineering}, volume = {2}, number = {mine-02-02-01}, year = {2020}, pages = {230}, type = {Perspective}, abstract = {

Mathematical modeling and quantitative study of biological motility (in particular, of motility at microscopic scales) is producing new biophysical insight and is offering opportunities for new discoveries at the level of both fundamental science and technology. These range from the explanation of how complex behavior at the level of a single organism emerges from body architecture, to the understanding of collective phenomena in groups of organisms and tissues, and of how these forms of swarm intelligence can be controlled and harnessed in engineering applications, to the elucidation of processes of fundamental biological relevance at the cellular and sub-cellular level. In this paper, some of the most exciting new developments in the fields of locomotion of unicellular organisms, of soft adhesive locomotion across scales, of the study of pore translocation properties of knotted DNA, of the development of synthetic active solid sheets, of the mechanics of the unjamming transition in dense cell collectives, of the mechanics of cell sheet folding in volvocalean algae, and of the self-propulsion of topological defects in active matter are discussed. For each of these topics, we provide a brief state of the art, an example of recent achievements, and some directions for future research.

}, keywords = {active matter, adhesive locomotion, cell motility, cell sheet folding, knotted DNA, topological defects, unicellular swimmers, unjamming transition}, issn = {2640-3501}, doi = {10.3934/mine.2020011}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3934/mine.2020011}, author = {Daniele Agostinelli and Roberto Cerbino and Del Alamo, Juan C and Antonio DeSimone and Stephanie H{\"o}hn and Cristian Micheletti and Giovanni Noselli and Eran Sharon and Julia Yeomans} } @article {AGOSTINELLI2019103702, title = {Nutations in growing plant shoots: The role of elastic deformations due to gravity loading}, journal = {Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids}, year = {2019}, pages = {103702}, abstract = {

The effect of elastic deformations induced by gravity loading on the active circumnutation movements of growing plant shoots is investigated. We consider first a discrete model (a gravitropic spring-pendulum system) and then a continuous rod model which is analyzed both analytically (under the assumption of small deformations) and numerically (in the large deformation regime). We find that, for a choice of material parameters consistent with values reported in the available literature on plant shoots, rods of sufficient length may exhibit lateral oscillations of increasing amplitude, which eventually converge to limit cycles. This behavior strongly suggests the occurrence of a Hopf bifurcation, just as for the gravitropic spring-pendulum system, for which this result is rigorously established. At least in this restricted set of material parameters, our analysis supports a view of Darwin{\textquoteright}s circumnutations as a biological analogue to structural systems exhibiting flutter instabilities, i.e., spontaneous oscillations away from equilibrium configurations driven by non-conservative loads. Here, in the context of nutation movements of growing plant shoots, the energy needed to sustain oscillations is continuously supplied to the system by the internal biochemical machinery presiding the capability of plants to maintain a vertical pose.

}, keywords = {Circumnutations, Flutter instability, Gravitropism, Hopf bifurcation}, issn = {0022-5096}, doi = {10.1016/j.jmps.2019.103702}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2019.103702}, author = {Daniele Agostinelli and Alessandro Lucantonio and Giovanni Noselli and Antonio DeSimone} } @article {2018, title = {Peristaltic Waves as Optimal Gaits in Metameric Bio-Inspired Robots}, journal = {Frontiers in Robotics and AI}, volume = {5}, year = {2018}, month = {09/2018}, abstract = {

Peristalsis, i.e., a motion pattern arising from the propagation of muscle contraction and expansion waves along the body, is a common locomotion strategy for limbless animals. Mimicking peristalsis in bio-inspired robots has attracted considerable attention in the literature. It has recently been observed that maximal velocity in a metameric earthworm-like robot is achieved by actuating the segments using a {\textquotedblleft}phase coordination{\textquotedblright} principle. This paper shows that, in fact, peristalsis (which requires not only phase coordination, but also that all segments oscillate at same frequency and amplitude) emerges from optimization principles. More precisely, basing our analysis on the assumption of small deformations, we show that peristaltic waves provide the optimal actuation solution in the ideal case of a periodic infinite system, and that this is approximately true, modulo edge effects, for the real, finite length system. Therefore, this paper confirms the effectiveness of mimicking peristalsis in bio-inspired robots, at least in the small-deformation regime. Further research will be required to test the effectiveness of this strategy if large deformations are allowed.

}, keywords = {Biomimetic robots, Crawling motility, Lumbricus terrestris, Metameric robots, Optimization, Peristalsis, Self-propulsion, Soft robotics}, issn = {2296-9144}, doi = {10.3389/frobt.2018.00099}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2018.00099}, author = {Daniele Agostinelli and Fran{\c c}ois Alouges and Antonio DeSimone} }