Related papers: Active Matter as a framework for living systems-in…
Drawing inspiration from flight behavior in biological settings (e.g. territorial battles in dragonflies, and flocking in starlings), this paper demonstrates two strategies for coverage and flocking. Using earlier theoretical studies on…
Granular media (GM) present locomotor challenges for terrestrial and extraterrestrial devices because they can flow and solidify in response to localized intrusion of wheels, limbs, and bodies. While the development of airplanes and…
Many structural properties of conventional passive materials are known to arise from the symmetries of their microscopic constituents. By contrast, it is largely unclear how the interplay between cell shape and self-propulsion controls the…
As robot make their way out of factories into human environments, outer space, and beyond, they require the skill to manipulate their environment in multifarious, unforeseeable circumstances. With this regard, pushing is an essential motion…
Contemporary robots have become exceptionally skilled at achieving specific tasks in structured environments. However, they often fail when faced with the limitless permutations of real-world unstructured environments. This motivates…
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…
Biological systems are influenced by fluid mechanics at nearly all spatiotemporal scales. This broad relevance of fluid mechanics to biology has been increasingly appreciated by engineers and biologists alike, leading to continued expansion…
The multifarious internal workings of organisms are difficult to reconcile with a single feature defining a state of being alive. Indeed, definitions of life rely on emergent properties (growth, capacity to evolve, agency) only symptomatic…
The objective of this work is to augment the basic abilities of a robot by learning to use new sensorimotor primitives to enable the solution of complex long-horizon problems. Solving long-horizon problems in complex domains requires…
The ability to navigate in complex, inhomogeneous environments is fundamental to survival at all length scales, giving rise to the rapid development of various subfields in bio-locomotion such as the well established concept of chemotaxis.…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into mechanical work to produce autonomous motion, and exhibit striking collective dynamics that biology relies on for essential functions. Controlling those dynamics and transport in…
In contrast with the diversity of materials found in nature, most robots are designed with some combination of aluminum, stainless steel, and 3D-printed filament. Additionally, robotic systems are typically assumed to follow basic…
As the study of active matter has developed into one of the most rapidly growing subfields of condensed matter physics, more and more kinds of physical systems have been included in this framework. While the word 'active' is often thought…
Systems consisting of spheres rolling on elastic membranes have been used to introduce a core conceptual idea of General Relativity (GR): how curvature guides the movement of matter. However, such schemes cannot accurately represent…
Active nematics, formed from a liquid crystalline suspension of active force dipoles, are a paradigmatic active matter system whose study provides insights into how chemical driving produces the cellular mechanical forces essential for…
We describe opportunities and challenges with wireless robotic materials. Robotic materials are multi-functional composites that tightly integrate sensing, actuation, computation and communication to create smart composites that can sense…
The emerging behaviors of swarms have fascinated scientists and gathered significant interest in the field of robotics. Traditionally, swarms are viewed as egalitarian, with robots sharing identical roles and capabilities. However, recent…
The collective behavior of swarms is extremely difficult to estimate or predict, even when the local agent rules are known and simple. The presented work seeks to leverage the similarities between fluids and swarm systems to generate a…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Active matter has played a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of non-equilibrium systems, leading to a fundamental shift in the study of biophysical phenomena. The foundation of active matter research is built on assumptions…