https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-025-00513-3
Regular Article - Living Systems
Reinforcement learning of a biflagellate model microswimmer
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Kolingasse 14-16, 1090, Vienna, Austria
Received:
11
March
2025
Accepted:
29
July
2025
Published online:
13
August
2025
Many microswimmers are able to swim through viscous fluids by employing periodic non-reciprocal deformations of their appendages. Here we use a simple microswimmer model inspired by swimming biflagellates which consists of a spherical cell body and two small spherical beads representing the motion of the two flagella. Using reinforcement learning, we identify for different microswimmer morphologies quasi-optimized swimming strokes. For all studied cases, the identified strokes result in symmetric and quasi-synchronized beating of the two flagella beads. Interestingly, the stroke-averaged flow fields are of pusher type, and the observed swimming gaits outperform previously used biflagellate microswimmer models relying on predefined circular flagella-bead motion.
© The Author(s) 2025
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