Date: 12/12/08

Speaker: Dr. R. Bouffanais

Title: Hydrodynamic Sensing in an Inviscid Fluid

Abstract:
Effective hydrodynamic sensing is instrumental to fishes and some
aquatic amphibians. It also represents for autonomous underwater
vehicle, an alternative way of sensing its fluid environment when visual
and acoustic sensing are inoperative. To assess the effectiveness of
hydrodynamic sensing, we develop a model problem based on a
two-dimensional potential flow perturbed by the presence of a unique
solid obstacle. Using standard conformal mapping techniques, we have
access to the strongly-nonlinear functional relating the hydrodynamic
image and the characteristics of the obstacle. The best inverse possible
for this functional is sought given a finite level of accuracy of the
local hydrodynamic image.