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Published October 1996 | Published
Journal Article Open

Analog VLSI system for active drag reduction

Abstract

Drawing inspiration from the structure of shark skin, the authors are building a system to reduce drag along a surface. The entire question of active control of shark skin is speculative. Biologists hypothesize that sharks actively move their denticles. Indirect evidence of this is twofold. The denticles connect to muscles underneath the shark's skin. The total number of mechanoreceptive pressure sensors (pit organs) and their placement on a shark's body positively correlate with the speed of the species. For good active control, the shark may need many sensors to relay the current condition over its body. Although questions remain about sharks using active control, we concluded from this biological example that it may be beneficial to use controlled microscopic structures to reduce drag.

Additional Information

© 1996 IEEE. The Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering, as a part of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center Program (grant EEC-9402726) and the California Trade and Commerce Agency, Office of Strategic Technology (grant C94-0165) supported this work. Also, ARPA/ONR (grant N00014-93-1-0990) and AFOSR University Research Initiative (grant F49620-93-1-0332) partially supported this work.

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August 19, 2023
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