Section: New Results

Periodic body deformations are optimal for locomotion

Participants : Laetitia Giraldi, Frédéric Jean.

A periodic cycle of body’s deformation is a common strategy for locomotion (see for instance birds, fishes, humans). The aim of this work (see [29]) is to establish that the auto-propulsion of deformable object is optimally achieved using periodic strategies of body’s deformations. This property is proved for a simple model using optimal control theory framework.