Related papers: Nematic colloidal micro-robots as physically intel…
Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces with the environment. However, sensing and feedback are still required for higher level decisions and…
Active nematics are materials composed of mobile, elongated particles that can transform energy from the environment into a mechanical motion. Current experimental realizations of the active nematics are of biological origin and include…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Emerging technologies based on liquid crystal (LC) materials increasingly leverage the presence of nanoscale defects, unlike the canonical application of LCs -- LC displays. The inherent nanoscale characteristics of LC defects present both…
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…
Magnetic soft robots embedded with hard magnetic particles enable untethered actuation via external magnetic fields, offering remote, rapid, and precise control, which is highly promising for biomedical applications. However, designing such…
Magnetic microrobots can be navigated by an external magnetic field to autonomously move within living organisms with complex and unstructured environments. Potential applications include drug delivery, diagnostics, and therapeutic…
Microfluidics involves the manipulation of flows at the microscale, typically requiring external power sources to generate pressure gradients. Alternatively, harnessing flows from active fluids, which are usually chaotic, has been proposed…
A promising approach of designing mesostructured materials with novel physical behavior is to combine unique optical and electronic properties of solid nanoparticles with long-range ordering and facile response of soft matter to weak…
We introduce a new mesoscopic model for nematic liquid crystals (LCs). We extend the particle-based stochastic rotation dynamics method, which reproduces the Navier-Stokes equation, to anisotropic fluids by including a simplified…
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…
Robotic assistance has significantly improved the outcomes of open microsurgery and rigid endoscopic surgery, however is yet to make an impact in flexible endoscopic neurosurgery. Some of the most common intracranial procedures for…
Colloidal particles in liquid crystals tend to induce topological defects and distortions of the molecular alignment within the surrounding anisotropic host medium, which results in elasticity-mediated interactions not accessible to their…
The yet virtually unexplored class of soft colloidal rods with small aspect ratio is investigated and shown to exhibit a very rich phase and dynamic behavior, spanning from liquid to nearly melt state. Instead of nematic order, these short…
Miniature locomotion robots with the ability to navigate confined environments show great promise for a wide range of tasks, including search and rescue operations. Soft miniature locomotion robots, as a burgeoning field, have attracted…
Active colloidal particles provide versatile model systems for exploring non-equilibrium physics in motile matter. To date, most experimental realizations have focused on spherical particles, largely due to fabrication constraints. However,…
This study investigates how dynamical systems may be learned and modelled with a neuromorphic network which is itself a dynamical system. The neuromorphic network used in this study is based on a complex electrical circuit comprised of…
Active systems of self-propelled agents, e.g., birds, fish, and bacteria, can organize their collective motion into myriad autonomous behaviors. Ubiquitous in nature and across length scales, such phenomena are also amenable to artificial…
Coordinating micro-robotic swarms in physiologically realistic, time-dependent fluid environments remains an unsolved challenge for biomedical and environmental applications. We present a hybrid Computational Fluid Dynamics -…
Legged robots offer several advantages when navigating unstructured environments, but they often fall short of the efficiency achieved by wheeled robots. One promising strategy to improve their energy economy is to leverage their natural…