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We report a closed-loop control system for paramagnetic catalytically self-propelled Janus microrobots. We achieve this control by employing electromagnetic coils that direct the magnetic field in a desired orientation to steer the…
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine's parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today's engineering frontier, building artificial…
Mobile microrobots are envisioned to be useful in a wide range of high-impact applications, many of which requiring cohesive group formation to maintain self-bounded swarms in the absence of confining boundaries. Cohesive group formation…
Modular small-scale robots offer the potential for on-demand assembly and disassembly, enabling task-specific adaptation in dynamic and constrained environments. However, existing modular magnetic platforms often depend on workspace…
Hydrodynamical interactions of active micro-particles are pervasive in our planet's fluid environments. Hence, understanding the interactions of these self-propelled particles is essential for science and engineering. In this paper the…
Self-locking structures are often studied in macroscopic energy absorbers, but the concept of self-locking can also be effectively applied at the nanoscale. In particular, we can engineer self-locking mechanisms at the molecular level…
A major challenge in the study of active systems is to harness their non-equilibrium dynamics into useful work. We address this by showing how to design colloids with controllable spontaneous propulsion or rotation when immersed in active…
We study propulsion arising from microscopic colloidal rotors dynamically assembled and driven in a viscous fluid upon application of an elliptically polarized rotating magnetic field. Close to a confining plate, the motion of this…
Antiferromagnets are outstanding candidates for the next generation of spintronic applications, with great potential for downscaling and decreasing power consumption. Recently, the manipulation of bulk properties of antiferromagnets has…
We introduce a system of light driven microscopic autonomous moving particles that move on a flat surface. The design is simple, yet effective: Micrometer sized objects with wedge shape are produced by photopolymerization, they are covered…
Superparamagnetic colloidal particles can be reversibly assembled into wheel-like structures called microwheels ($\mu$wheels) which roll on surfaces due to friction and can be driven at user-controlled speeds and directions using rotating…
Modular reconfigurable robots require reliable mechanisms for automated module exchange, but conventional rigid active couplings often fail due to inevitable positioning and orientational errors. To address this, we propose a…
Modular robotics enables the development of versatile and adaptive robotic systems with autonomous reconfiguration. This paper presents a modular robotic system in which each module has independent actuation, battery power, and control,…
Microorganisms are able to overcome the thermal randomness of their surroundings by harvesting energy to navigate in viscous fluid environments. In a similar manner, synthetic colloidal microswimmers are capable of mimicking complex…
Controlling the phases of matter is a challenge that spans from condensed materials to biological systems. Here, by imposing a geometric boundary condition, we study controlled collective motion of Escherichia coli bacteria. A circular…
Magnetic fields break time-reversal symmetry, which is leveraged in many settings to enable the nonreciprocal behavior of light. This is the core physics of circulators and other elements used in a variety of microwave and optical settings.…
Natural materials often feature a combination of soft and stiff phases, arranged to achieve excellent mechanical properties, such as high strength and toughness. Many natural materials have even independently evolved to have similar…
We consider a simple model of an internally driven self-rotating object; a rotor, confined to two dimensions by a thin film of low Reynolds number fluid. We undertake a detailed study of the hydrodynamic interactions between a pair of…
We derive a model describing spatio-temporal organization of an array of microtubules interacting via molecular motors. Starting from a stochastic model of inelastic polar rods with a generic anisotropic interaction kernel we obtain a set…