Ardian Jusufi

Harvard University | Harvard · Area of Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering

Undulatory motion of the body is the dominant mode of locomotion in fishes, and numerous studies of body kinematics and muscle activity patterns have provided insights into the mechanics of swimming. However, it has not been possible to investigate how key parameters such as the extent of bilateral muscle activation affect propulsive performance du...

In 1969, a palaeontologist proposed that theropod dinosaurs used their tails as dynamic stabilizers during rapid or irregular movements, contributing to their depiction as active and agile predators. Since then the inertia of swinging appendages has been implicated in stabilizing human walking, aiding acrobatic manoeuvres by primates and rodents, a...

Geckos are nature's elite climbers. Their remarkable climbing feats have been attributed to specialized feet with hairy toes that uncurl and peel in milliseconds. Here, we report that the secret to the gecko's arboreal acrobatics includes an active tail. We examine the tail's role during rapid climbing, aerial descent, and gliding. We show that a g...

Escaping from predators often demands that animals rapidly negotiate complex environments. The smallest animals attain relatively fast speeds with high frequency leg cycling, wing flapping or body undulations, but absolute speeds are slow compared to larger animals. Instead, small animals benefit from the advantages of enhanced maneuverability in p...

Unlike the falling cat, lizards can right themselves in mid-air by a swing of their large tails in one direction causing the body to rotate in the other. Here, we developed a new three-dimensional analytical model to investigate the effectiveness of tails as inertial appendages that change body orientation. We anchored our model using the morpholog...

Gravitational forces can induce deviations in body posture from desired configurations in multi-legged arboreal robot locomotion with low leg stiffness, affecting the contact angle between the swing leg’s end-effector and the climbing surface during the gait cycle. The relationship between desired and actual foot positions is investigated here in a...

Animals have evolved highly effective locomotion capabilities in terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic environments. Over life’s history, mass extinctions have wiped out unique animal species with specialized adaptations, leaving paleontologists to reconstruct their locomotion through fossil analysis. Despite advancements, little is known about how exti...

Animals have evolved highly effective locomotion capabilities in terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic environments. Over life’s history, mass extinctions have wiped out unique animal species with specialized adaptations, leaving paleontologists to reconstruct their locomotion through fossil analysis. Despite advancements, little is known about how exti...

Soft bio-inspired robotics is a growing field of research that seeks to close the gap with animal robustness and adaptability where conventional robots fall short. The embedding of sensors with the capability to discriminate between different body deformation modes is a key technological challenge in soft robotics to enhance robot control — a diffi...

Recent observations of wingless animals, including jumping nematodes, springtails, insects, and wingless vertebrates like geckos, snakes, and salamanders, have shown that their adaptations and body morphing are essential for rapid self-righting and controlled landing. These skills can reduce the risk of physical damage during collision, minimize re...

Dogs and other members of Canidae utilize their tail for different purposes including agile movement such as running and jumping. One of the unique aspects of the Canidae species is they have a very small size differential as a clade with all of the extant canid species are below 35 kg, except large dog breeds. In this study, we utilize morphologic...

Bioinspired Robots In article number 2200120, Ardian Jusufi and co‐workers present a bio‐inspired soft robotic lander inspired from geckos perching on trees. Hard landings are demonstrated for a range of approach angles and speeds, making the soft bodied lander robust to external perturbations resembling those experienced in real‐world conditions....

Landing on vertical surfaces in challenging environments is a critical ability for multimodal robots—it allows the robot to hold position above the ground without expending energy to hover. Asian flat‐tailed geckos (Hemidactylus platyurus) are observed to glide and perch on vertical surfaces by relying on their tail and body morphology, potentially...

Due to the difficulty of manipulating muscle activation in live, freely swimming fish, a thorough examination of the body kinematics, propulsive performance, and muscle activity patterns in fish during undulatory swimming motion has not been conducted. We propose to use soft robotic model animals as experimental platforms to address biomechanics qu...

Animals use diverse solutions to land on vertical surfaces. Here we show the unique landing of the gliding gecko, Hemidactylus platyurus. Our high-speed video footage in the Southeast Asian rainforest capturing the first recorded, subcritical, short-range glides revealed that geckos did not markedly decrease velocity prior to impact. Unlike special...

We propose the use of bio-inspired robotics equipped with soft sensor technologies to gain a better understanding of the mechanics and control of animal movement. Soft robotic systems can be used to generate new hypotheses and uncover fundamental principles underlying animal locomotion and sensory capabilities, which could subsequently be validated...

Diverse solutions for active fluid movement are known in nature and in human-made devices. However, commercial peristaltic pumps are mostly rigid, non-compliant, and tough to integrate into biocompatible materials. This work aims to approximate actuator-like behavior concerning non-hemolytic pumping action and higher energy density to develop bioro...

Supporting Information for Strong, Ultrastretchable Hydrogel-Based Multilayered Soft Actuator Composites Enhancing Biologically Inspired Pumping Systems

Diverse solutions for active fluid movement are known in nature and in human‐made devices. However, commercial peristaltic pumps are mostly rigid, noncompliant, and tough to integrate into biocompatible materials. This work aims to approximate actuator‐like behavior concerning nonhemolytic pumping action and higher energy density to develop biorobo...

Arboreal animals face numerous challenges when negotiating complex three dimensional terrain. Directed aerial descent or gliding flight allows for rapid traversal of arboreal environments, but presents control challenges. Some animals, such as birds or gliding squirrels, have specialized structures to modulate aerodynamic forces while airborne. How...

Arboreal mammals navigate a highly three dimensional and discontinuous habitat. Among arboreal mammals, squirrels demonstrate impressive agility. In a recent 'viral' YouTube video, unsuspecting squirrels were mechanically catapulted off of a track, inducing an initially uncontrolled rotation of the body. Interestingly, they skillfully stabilized th...

Soft robotics can be used not only as a means of achieving novel, more lifelike forms of locomotion, but also as a tool to understand complex biomechanics through the use of robotic model animals. Herein, the control of the undulation mechanics of an entirely soft robotic subcarangiform fish is presented, using antagonistic fast-PneuNet actuators a...

Fish locomotion is characterized by waves of muscle electrical activity that proceed from head to tail, and result in an undulatory pattern of body bending that generates thrust during locomotion. Isolating the effects of parameters like body stiffness, phasing of activity between the right and left sides of the body, and frequency on thrust genera...

The addition of external mass onto an organism can be used to examine the salient features of inherent locomotion dynamics. In this biorobotics study general principles of systems in motion are explored experimentally to gain insight on observed biodiversity in body plans and prevalent cranio-caudal mass distributions. Head and tail mass can make u...

Acrobatic geckos can sprint at high speeds over challenging terrain [1], scamper up the smoothest surfaces [2], rapidly swing underneath leaves [3], and right themselves in midair by swinging only their tails [4, 5]. From our field observations, we can add racing on the water's surface to the gecko's list of agile feats. Locomotion at the air-water...

Understanding the biomechanics of rapid running locomotion plays an important role in comparative biomechanics and bio-inspired engineering and is an integral part of animal welfare. However, this is not easily achieved using conventional methods of gait analysis: measuring ground reaction forces using a force plate, mainly on irregular granular te...

Side view of a cockroach P. americana attempting to perform an inversion after claw ablation, but failing. The first sequences are real time. The second sequences are slowed 10X. The last sequence is slowed 50X. (MOV)

A wild-caught gecko, H. platyurus, performs a high-speed inversion while running on a leaf in the rainforest of Singapore. Left panel shows bottom view and right panel show top view. The first sequences are real time. The second sequences are slowed 10X. (MOV)

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Side view of a cockroach, P. americana, performing a high-speed inversion while running up a ramp. The first sequences are real time. The second sequences are slowed 10X. The last sequence is slowed 50X. (MOV)

Side view of a house gecko, H. platyurus, performing a high-speed inversion while running up a ramp. The first sequences are real time. The second sequences are slowed 10X. (MOV)

A top view of a cockroach, P. americana, performing a high-speed inversion while running up a ramp. The first sequences are real time. The second sequences are slowed 10X. (MOV)

Robot (DASH; Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod Robot) running at high-speed performing rapid inversion while running near a ledge. The first sequences are real time. The second sequence is slowed 12X. (MOV)

Animals that fall upside down typically engage in an aerial righting response so as to reorient dorsoventrally. This behavior can be preparatory to gliding or other controlled aerial behaviors and is ultimately necessary for a successful landing. Aerial righting reflexes have been described historically in various mammals such as cats, guinea pigs,...