High-speed cameras and a wind tunnel were used to decode butterfly flight.

Christoffer Johansson and Per Henningsson of Lund University in Sweden waded through the grass and wildflowers in a meadow near the school's field station on a hot summer day. They went slowly and methodically toward a cantaloupe-colored insect's fleeting flutter, ready to catch it with a delicate cotton net. For Johansson and Henningsson, capturing silver-washed fritillary butterflies is considerably more than a summer pastime. To figure out what gives these butterflies their characteristic flight pattern, they utilise slow-motion cameras and high-speed flow measurements. This discovery not only aids scientists in better understanding the biology of this insect, but it also has the potential to influence the design of future drones.

It's not always easy, adds Johansson, who recalls the scorching heat of field searching and the frenetic search for specimens within their experimental wind tunnel, but it's always fascinating.

"We usually spend the majority of our time in the lab," Johansson explains. "We actually spent a few days out in the meadows gathering butterflies in this case... But it's during the actual experiments in the wind tunnel that I have the most fun and frustration. Even though the butterfly is placed in a certain location, once it takes flight, it can quickly wander around the tunnel and vanish, only to resurface atop the researchers' heads."

The Mysterious Monarch

Butterflies are capable of flying not just in short bursts from blossom to flower, but also in long-distance migratory trips. The monarch butterfly, for example, migrates about 4,800 kilometres (3,000 miles) from the United States to Mexico.

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Butterfly flight is remarkable for a variety of reasons, according to Johansson. They also have a relatively big wing-to-body ratio given their modest body size, compared to other insects.

"When compared to other flying species, butterflies are extraordinary," Johansson explains. "They have a low wing loading and a low aspect ratio, which implies their wings are fundamentally huge, short, and broad in comparison to other flying creatures."

Butterfly takeoff with weight support on the downstroke and thrust generation on the upstroke. (Photo credit: P. Henningsson and L. C. Johansson)

Scientists hypothesised in the 1970s that butterflies achieve multifunctional flight by generating a jet of air when they clap their wings together at the top of the upstroke to propel themselves ahead. However, it has taken nearly 50 years for researchers to establish this mechanism since quantifying free-flying activity, as opposed to tethered flight under laboratory settings, is more difficult stated than done. Johansson and Henningsson's research adds to the body of knowledge on butterfly flight dynamics, allowing them to better comprehend how it could be applied in different contexts.

"It's difficult to predict what basic research will be utilised for in the end," Johansson added, "but in this situation, there are direct applications in drones." "Today, there are drones flying that generate forces using a clap mechanism. It could be worthwhile for them to investigate this proposed butterfly mechanism to improve drone wing flexibility and increase clapping efficiency and force."

Butterfly Flight Capture

The researchers used honey water feeders to entice six silver-washed fritillary butterflies to take flight in a recirculating wind tunnel at Lund University. This is a one-of-a-kind wind tunnel. It was built to study avian flight at first. To deter the butterflies from flying away from the team's measurement setup, a huge fan in the tunnel circulates air at two metres per second (4.5 mph).

The team used four high-speed cameras to record the air motion created by the butterflies, as well as two more cameras to catch the butterflies' movement. The researchers may generate a 3D model of fluid flow using a flow measuring technique called tomographic particle image velocimetry, and then investigate the aerodynamic forces to learn how butterfly wings propel their flight. The focus of this study was on the wind jets formed when butterflies clap their wings.

In the wind tunnel, tiny aerosol particles of roughly 1 micrometre in size are suspended. The motion of these particles is captured by high-speed cameras as the butterflies fly through them in front of a laser-lit sheet. The crew recorded a total of 25 sequences, each with one to three wingbeats.

The team used MATLAB® for data analysis, including a user interface he built for vector analysis to examine the fluid dynamics of butterfly flight, according to Johansson.

“Our field of research is technically and quantitatively demanding, and there is no single software that can perform all of the analyses the way we want,” Johansson explained. "As a result, we'll have to write the majority of the code ourselves."

The thrust produced by a butterfly flying at approximately 2 ms-1 during its upstroke and clap. (Photo credit: P. Henningsson and L. C. Johansson)

"MATLAB was utilised to visualise the flow and plot the outcomes of the trials," explained Sagar Zade, a MathWorks education customer success engineer.

MATLAB was also used by Johansson and Henningsson to calculate aerodynamic forces, determine the clapper's aerodynamic power, and estimate background power using Monte Carlo simulations.

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"The findings from these experiments will be highly useful for future researchers who want to use MATLAB to numerically describe fluid dynamics utilising sophisticated Navier Stokes equations," Zade said.

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