Related papers: Building granular structures with elasto-active sy…
Compliant environments can mediate interactions between mechanically active cells like fibroblasts. Starting with a phenomenological model for the behaviour of single cells, we use extensive Monte Carlo simulations to predict non-trivial…
Networks of elastic beams can deform either by stretching or bending of their members. The primary mode of deformation (bending or stretching) crucially depends on the specific details of the network architecture. In order to shed light on…
Equilibrium self-assembly and conventional materials processing techniques fall far short of mimicking dynamic self-actuating processes that are commonplace throughout biology. To bridge the gap between living and synthetic matter, we study…
Aggregation is a common behavior by which groups of organisms arrange into cohesive groups. Whether suspended in the air (like honey bee clusters), built on the ground (such as army ant bridges), or immersed in water (such as sludge worm…
Chemical communication, response, and feedback are key requirements for the function of adaptive materials with life-like properties. However, how communication on the single cell-level impacts the collective structural, dynamical and…
Colloidal particles at complex fluid interfaces and within films assemble to form ordered structures with high degrees of symmetry via interactions that include capillarity, elasticity, and other fields like electrostatic charge. Here we…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
We derive a class of macroscopic differential equations that describe collective adaptation, starting from a discrete-time stochastic microscopic model. The behavior of each agent is a dynamic balance between adaptation that locally…
Self-organization is the generation of order out of local interactions in non-equilibrium [1]. It is deeply connected to all fields of science from physics, chemistry to biology where functional living structures self-assemble[2] and…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
Understanding the out-of-equilibrium properties of noisy microscale systems and the extent to which they can be modulated externally, is a crucial scientific and technological challenge. It holds the promise to unlock disruptive new…
Natural physical, chemical, and biological dynamical systems are often complex, with heterogeneous components interacting in diverse ways. We show how simple graph neural networks can be designed to jointly learn the interaction rules and…
Advances in synthetic biology allow us to engineer bacterial collectives with pre-specified characteristics. However, the behavior of these collectives is difficult to understand, as cellular growth and division as well as extra-cellular…
In crowded environments, individuals must navigate around other occupants to reach their destinations. Understanding and controlling traffic flows in these spaces is relevant for coordinating robot swarms and designing infrastructure for…
Confined thin structures are ubiquitous in nature. Spatial and length constraints have led to a number of novel packing strategies at both the micro-scale, as when DNA packages inside a capsid, and the macro-scale, seen in plant root…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
We study the behaviour of interacting self-propelled particles, whose self-propulsion speed decreases with their local density. By combining direct simulations of the microscopic model with an analysis of the hydrodynamic equations obtained…
We explore the locomotion of soft robots in granular medium (GM) resulting from the elastic deformation of slender rods. A low-cost, rapidly fabricable robot inspired by the physiological structure of bacteria is presented. It consists of a…
Developing reliable mechanisms for continuous local learning is a central challenge faced by biological and artificial systems. Yet, how the environmental factors and structural constraints on the learning network influence the optimal…
The motion of an object within a viscous fluid and in the vicinity of a soft surface induces a hydrodynamic stress field that deforms the latter, thus modifying the boundary conditions of the flow. This results in elastohydrodynamic (EHD)…