Numerical Strategies for Stroke Optimization of Axisymmetric Microswimmers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a computational boundary integral method for optimizing the swimming efficiency of axisymmetric microswimmers, including classical and biologically inspired models, by directly minimizing energy consumption.

Contribution

It presents a novel numerical approach for solving optimal swimming problems using boundary integral formulation and constrained minimization, applied to axisymmetric microswimmers.

Findings

Effective computational method for swimmer optimization

Application to classical and novel axisymmetric models

Demonstrated energy efficiency improvements

Abstract

We propose a computational method to solve optimal swimming problems, based on the boundary integral formulation of the hydrodynamic interaction between swimmer and surrounding fluid and direct constrained minimization of the energy consumed by the swimmer. We apply our method to axisymmetric model examples. We consider a classical model swimmer (the three-sphere swimmer of Golestanian et al.) as well as a novel axisymmetric swimmer inspired by the observation of biological micro-organisms.