Aerodynamic and Mechanosensory Functions in Wing-Damaged Flapping Flight

Insects possess an extraordinary ability to maintain stable flight despite suffering significant wing damage, a feat that continues to elude man-made aerial vehicles, which often fail catastrophically under similar conditions. The blue bottle fly (Calliphora vomitoria) exemplifies this biological resilience, routinely performing agile maneuvers even with compromised wings. This robustness can offer inspiration for the design of next-generation fault-tolerant flying robots. However, the underlying mechanisms that enable such resilience, particularly how structural damage affects both aerodynamic performance and wing-embedded mechanosensors, remain poorly understood. While prior research has examined the aerodynamic consequences of wing damage, the influence of strain on mechanosensors such as campaniform sensilla has yet to be explored in the context of a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) framework. In this study, we integrate high-fidelity FSI simulations with experimentally derived wing kinematics and anatomical vein structures to investigate how spanwise wing damage affects both aerodynamic performance and mechanosensory inputs. Our simulations reveal progressive degradation in lift, aerodynamic efficiency, and structural stiffness as damage severity increases. Wake visualizations indicate altered vortex shedding and flow separation patterns. At the sensor level, strain distributions across the wing change significantly, with many mechanosensor sites experiencing amplified or diminished strain magnitudes, potentially modulating their neural activity patterns. Our study aims to offer new insights into damage resilience and has potential implications for bio-inspired flapping-wing vehicle design.