Related papers: Cellular Plasticity Model for Bottom-Up Robotic De…
Natural systems integrate the work of many sub-units (cells) toward a large-scale unified goal (morphological and behavioral), which can counteract the effects of unexpected experiences, damage, or simply changes in tasks demands. In this…
Robots' behavior and performance are determined both by hardware and software. The design process of robotic systems is a complex journey that involves multiple phases. Throughout this process, the aim is to tackle various criteria…
In robotics, structural design and behavior optimization have long been considered separate processes, resulting in the development of systems with limited capabilities. Recently, co-design methods have gained popularity, where bi-level…
Topology optimization is an important basis for the design of components. Here, the optimal structure is found within a design space subject to boundary conditions. Thereby, the specific material law has a strong impact on the final design.…
The Turing patterning mechanism is believed to underly the formation of repetitive structures in development, such as zebrafish stripes and mammalian digits, but it has proved difficult to isolate the specific biochemical species…
Many mathematical models of synaptic plasticity have been proposed to explain the diversity of plasticity phenomena observed in biological organisms. These models range from simple interpretations of Hebb's postulate, which suggests that…
Biological cells are able to generate intricate structures and respond to external stimuli, sculpting their membrane from within. Simplified biomimetic systems can aid in understanding the principles which govern these shape changes and…
The response of cells during spreading and motility is dictated by several multi-physics events, which are triggered by extracellular cues and occur at different time-scales. For this sake, it is not completely appropriate to provide a cell…
Turing mechanisms can yield a large variety of patterns from noisy, homogenous initial conditions and have been proposed as patterning mechanism for many developmental processes. However, the molecular components that give rise to Turing…
This study explores the design and control of the behaviour of agents and robots using simple circuits of spiking neurons and Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) as a mechanism of associative and unsupervised learning. Based on a…
The collective response of a system is profoundly shaped by the interaction dynamics between its constituent elements. In physics, tailoring these interactions can enable the observation of unusual phenomena that are otherwise inaccessible…
We propose a model-based, automated, bottom-up approach for design, which is applicable to various physical domains, but in this work we focus on the electrical domain. This bottom-up approach is based on a meta-topology in which each link…
Cellular decision-making based on information received from the external environment is frequently initiated by transmembrane receptors. These receptors are known to propagate such information by triggering a series of irreversible,…
Turing patterns are stationary, wave-like structures that emerge from the nonequilibrium assembly of reactive and diffusive components. While they are foundational in biophysics, their classical formulation relies on a single characteristic…
Cultured stem cells have become a standard platform not only for regenerative medicine and developmental biology but also for biophysical studies. Yet, the characterization of cultured stem cells at the level of morphology and macroscopic…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
Controlling laser-induced pattern formation remains a long-standing challenge. A key advance was recognising the pivotal role of intrinsic feedback mechanisms in self-organisation, which enabled self-similar patterns with long-range order…
Auxetics refer to a class of engineered structures which exhibit an overall negative Poisson's ratio. These structures open up various potential opportunities in impact resistance, high energy absorption, and flexible robotics, among…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…