Bioinspired Morphing in Aerodynamics and Hydrodynamics: Engineering Innovations for Aerospace and Renewable Energy

Bioinspired morphing offers a powerful route to higher aerodynamic and hydrodynamic efficiency. Birds reposition feathers, bats extend compliant membrane wings, and fish modulate fin stiffness, tailoring lift, drag, and thrust in real time. To capture these advantages, engineers are developing airfoils, rotor blades, and hydrofoils that actively change shape, reducing drag, improving maneuverability, and harvesting energy from unsteady flows. This review surveys over 296 studies, with primary emphasis on literature published between 2015 and 2025, distilling four biological archetypes-avian wing morphing, bat-wing elasticity, fish-fin compliance, and tubercled marine flippers-and tracing their translation into morphing aircraft, ornithopters, rotorcraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and tidal or wave-energy converters. We compare experimental demonstrations and numerical simulations, identify consensus performance gains (up to 30% increase in lift-to-drag ratio, 4 dB noise reduction, and 15% boost in propulsive or power-capture efficiency), and analyze materials, actuation, control strategies, certification, and durability as the main barriers to deployment. Advances in multifunctional composites, electroactive polymers, and model-based adaptive control have moved prototypes from laboratory proof-of-concept toward field testing. Continued collaboration among biology, materials science, control engineering, and fluid dynamics is essential to unlock robust, scalable morphing technologies that meet future efficiency and sustainability targets.