Abstract
Tragopogon dubious is a small herbaceous plant that uses the wind as dispersal vector for its seeds. The seeds are attached to stalked parachutes which increase the aerodynamic drag force on the seeds. This decreases their rate of descent, and hence increases the total distance traveled. The relatively large natural parachute of Tragopogon dubious is an ideal model in a biomimetic structure owing to its relative large size, sturdy and robust structure, and the hierarchical distribution of its fibers. The present contribution describes some preliminary results on the structural properties and aerodynamical behavior of this seed, with the goal of developing new stream of designs of lighter or more robust parachute for possible extra-terrestrial purposes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
McGinley, M., Brigham, E.: Fruit morphology and terminal velocity in tragopogon dubious (l.). Functional Ecology, 489–496 (1989)
Hensen, I., Müller, C.: Experimental and structural investigations of anemochorous dispersal. Plant Ecology 133(2), 169–180 (1997)
Quadrelli, M., Chang, J., Mettler, E., Zimmermann, W., Chau, S., Sengupta, A.: System architecture for guided herd of robots exploring titan. In: Proceedings of 2004 IEEE Aerospace Conference, vol. 1. IEEE (2004)
Southard, L., Hoeg, T., Palmer, D., Antol, J., Kolacinski, R., Quinn, R.: Exploring mars using a group of tumbleweed rovers. In: 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 775–780. IEEE (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Pandolfi, C., Casseau, V., Fu, T.P., Jacques, L., Izzo, D. (2012). Tragopogon dubius, Considerations on a Possible Biomimetic Transfer. In: Prescott, T.J., Lepora, N.F., Mura, A., Verschure, P.F.M.J. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7375. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31525-1_54
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31525-1_54
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31524-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31525-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)