Nobody who has swatted a fly, trod through a cloud of midges, or been bitten by a mosquito has failed to be impressed—and possibly infuriated—by the extraordinary speed and agility of flying insects. Flying insects are found everywhere on Earth’s surface: on every continent, including Antarctica; at the peak of Mt. Everest; and even out on the open ocean. They show extraordinary flight performance: for their size, the fastest of any animal on earth. Assistant Professor Arion Pons tries to understand insect flight performance by taking data from many different experiments—from high-speed cameras, X-rays, dissection, robotic experiments, and more—and connecting this data in ways that allow us to study properties of the insect that cannot be seen: the flow of force and energy through their muscles and exoskeleton. Quite apart from the fascination of understanding of life on Earth, studying insect flight is becoming more urgent as insect diversity, and thereby, whole ecosystems, are threatened by climate change, pesticides, and pollution. Arion’s research focuses on the biomechanics and biomathematics of exactly how insects fly, as a way to anticipate threats to their flight performance arising from human activity, and develop strategies and technologies to counteract these threats—including tiny insect-inspired flying robots for detecting and tracing pollution.
Links to papers in Chalmers research:
https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/538497
https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/535890
