Related papers: Programming droplet motion using metamaterials
We present the concept of a feedback-based topological acoustic metamaterial as a tool for realizing autonomous and active guiding of sound beams along arbitrary curved paths in free two-dimensional space. The metamaterial building blocks…
The dynamics of soft mechanical metamaterials provides opportunities for many exciting engineering applications. Previous studies often use discrete systems, composed of rigid elements and nonlinear springs, to model the nonlinear dynamic…
The complex behavior of highly deformable mechanical metamaterials can substantially enhance the performance of soft robots.
Emerging multiphysics metamaterials offer a distinct possibility for regulating complex physical processes. However, two severe constraints still lower their functionality and tunability. First, multiphysics functionality is fixed once…
Actuation and control of motion in micro-mechanical systems are technological challenges, since they are accompanied by mechanical friction and wear, principal and well known sources of device lifetime reduction. In this theoretical work we…
Metamaterials represent one of the most vibrant fields of modern science and technology. They are generally dispersive structures in the direct and reciprocal space and time domains. Upon this consideration, I overview here a number of…
Spinodal metamaterials, with architectures inspired by natural phase-separation processes, have presented a significant alternative to periodic and symmetric morphologies when designing mechanical metamaterials with extreme performance.…
We show how to control the movement of a wheeled robot using on-board liquid marbles made of Belousov-Zhabotinsky solution droplets coated with polyethylene powder. Two stainless steel, iridium coated electrodes were inserted in a marble…
Gaussian splatting has emerged as a powerful tool for high-fidelity reconstruction of dynamic scenes. However, existing methods primarily rely on implicit motion representations, such as encoding motions into neural networks or per-Gaussian…
We explore numerically the feasibility of using chemical patterning to control the size and polydispersity of micron-scale drops. The simulations suggest that it is possible to sort drops by size or wetting properties by using an array of…
We report experiments investigating the behaviour of micron-scale fluid droplets jetted onto surfaces patterned with lyophobic and lyophilic stripes. The final droplet shape depends on the droplet size relative to that of the stripes. In…
Interfaces between a water droplet and a network of pillars produce eventually superhydrophobic, self-cleaning properties. Considering the surface fraction of the surface in interaction with water, it is possible to tune precisely the…
Stable dynamical systems are a flexible tool to plan robotic motions in real-time. In the robotic literature, dynamical system motions are typically planned without considering possible limitations in the robot's workspace. This work…
Nature is remarkably adept at using interfaces to build structures, encapsulate reagents, and regulate biological processes. Inspired by Nature, we describe flexible polymer-based ribbons, termed "mesoscale polymers" (MSPs), to modulate…
Tailored mixing inside individual droplets could be useful to ensure that reactions within microscopic discrete fluid volumes, which are used as microreactors in ``digital microfluidic'' applications, take place in a controlled fashion. In…
Active metamaterials are a type of metamaterial with tunable properties enabled by structural reconfigurations. Existing active metamaterials often achieve only a limited number of structural reconfigurations upon the application of an…
Switchable and adaptive substrates emerged as valuable tools for the control of wetting and actuation of droplet motion. Here we report a computational study of the dynamics of an unstable thin liquid film deposited on a switchable…
Metamaterials are artificially engineered structures that manipulate electromagnetic waves, having optical properties absent in natural materials. Recently, machine learning for the inverse design of metamaterials has drawn attention.…
Dynamic control of a soft-body robot to deliver complex behaviors with low-dimensional actuation inputs is challenging. In this paper, we present a computational approach to automatically generate versatile, underactuated control policies…
Understanding the complex patterns in space-time exhibited by active systems has been the subject of much interest in recent times. Complementing this forward problem is the inverse problem of controlling active matter. Here we use optimal…