A novel bioinspired mechanism to elucidate the movement flexibility of the honeybee abdomen driven by muscles

Abstract

The abdomen of a honeybee is a blueprint for bioinspired mechanical design because of its movement flexibility and compactness. However, the abdominal muscles closely related to the movement flexibility mechanism have not been fully identified, limiting the potential biological advantage of their use in bionic mechanism design. In this study, we reveal the muscle distribution of the complete muscular driving unit in a honeybee abdomen using stereoscopy and scanning electron microscopy, and the muscle distribution was effectively verified using X‐ray tomography. A novel equivalent unit mechanism (EUM) was then proposed and the kinematic analysis indicated that the extension ratio, bending angle, and swing angle of the EUM reached 9.36%, 1.22°, and 4.43°, respectively. The deformation ability of the EUM was consistent with the movement of the abdomen, confirming the movement flexibility. This work may provide a new perspective for distributed bionic mechanism design.

Mechanism of elastic energy storage of honey bee abdominal muscles under stress relaxation

“…Frequent movements of the honey bee abdomen, such as pumping in feeding ( Zhao et al 2019 ), bending in flying ( Taylor et al 2013 , Zhao et al 2015 ), and swinging ( Klein et al 2018 ) in communication, require sufficient energy supply to the muscles among segments ( Zhang et al 2019 , 2021 , 2022 ). However, the adjoining-exoskeleton distribution and open circulatory system of abdominal muscles provide a slow material exchange condition ( Carreck et al 2013 ), causing a lack of dynamophore to support the whole process of abdominal movement.…”

Physiological Signatures of Changes in Honeybee’s Central Complex During Wing Flapping

“…By imitating the flapping-wing manner of neopteran flying insects, the microrobots powered by soft artificial muscles achieve controlled flight ( Chen et al 2019 ). The design of deployable skeleton structures that can be applied to the morphing nose cone is inspired by variable geometry mechanism of the honeybee abdomen ( Zhang et al 2019 , 2022 ). Also, some novel biological structures such as the folded intersegmental membrane of the honeybee abdomen are discovered to apply to the design of bionic mechanical structures ( Zhao et al 2016 , Liang et al 2019 ).…”