Related papers: Limit cycles turn active matter into robots
These lecture notes are designed to provide a brief introduction into the phenomenology of active matter and to present some of the analytical tools used to rationalize the emergent behavior of active systems. Such systems are made of…
In this paper, we discuss microscopic models for chiral active particles, i.e., rotating active units that exhibit circular or spinning motion. While non-chiral active particles are typically governed by self-propulsion and conservative…
Controlling the motion of macroscopic oscillators in the quantum regime has been the subject of intense research in recent decades. In this direction, opto-mechanical systems, where the motion of micro-objects is strongly coupled with laser…
The behavior of active matter under confinement poses significant challenges due to the intricate coupling between dynamics near boundaries and those in the bulk. A defining feature of active matter systems is that a substantial portion of…
Which kind of complex behavior may arise from self-organizing principles? We investigate this question for the case of snake-like robots composed of passively coupled segments, with every segment containing two wheels actuated separately by…
Emergent nonreciprocity in active matter drives the formation of self-organized states that transcend the behaviors of equilibrium systems. Integrating experiments, theory and simulations, we demonstrate that active solids composed of…
Soft robots are robotic systems made of deformable materials and exhibit unique flexibility that can be exploited for complex environments and tasks. However, their control problem has been considered a challenging subject because they are…
We demonstrate that active rotations in chemically signalling particles, such as autochemotactic {\it E. coli} close to walls, create a route for pattern formation based on a nonlinear yet deterministic instability mechanism. For slow…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
We present self-organizing control principles for simulated robots actuated by synthetic muscles. Muscles correspond to linear motors exerting force only when contracting, but not when expanding, with joints being actuated by pairs of…
We introduce a continuous-time random walk model on an infinite multilayer structure inspired by transportation networks. Each layer is a copy of $\mathbb{R}^d$, indexed by a non-negative integer. A walker moves within a layer by means of…
Active materials with distinctive nonequilibrium properties have diverse materials science applications. Active systems are common in living matter, such as the filament network in the cell that is activated by molecular motors, and in…
Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired…
Active filaments are a workhorse for propulsion and actuation across biology, soft robotics and mechanical metamaterials. However, artificial active rods suffer from limited robustness and adaptivity because they rely on external control,…
Active matter taps into external energy sources to power its own processes. Systems of passive particles ordinarily lack this capacity, but can become active if the constituent particles interact with each other nonreciprocally. By…
Cells control fluid flows with a spatial and temporal precision that far exceeds the capabilities of current microfluidic technologies. Cells achieve this superior spatio-temporal control by harnessing dynamic networks of cytoskeleton and…
Light carries energy and momentum. It can therefore alter the motion of objects from atomic to astronomical scales. Being widely available, readily controllable and broadly biocompatible, light is also an ideal tool to propel microscopic…
Active matter, exemplified by adaptive living materials such as the actomyosin cytoskeleton, can navigate material parameter space dynamically, leading to unconventional mechanical responses. In particular, it can self-drive toward elastic…
Kinetically constrained spin systems play an important role in understanding key properties of the dynamics of slowly relaxing materials, such as glasses. So far kinetic constraints have been introduced in idealised models aiming to capture…
Active matter physics and swarm robotics have provided powerful tools for the study and control of ensembles driven by internal sources. At the macroscale, controlling swarms typically utilizes significant memory, processing power, and…