Related papers: Active Matter as a framework for living systems-in…
A general framework for performing event-driven simulations of systems with semi-flexible or rigid bodies interacting under impulsive torques and forces is outlined. Two different approaches are presented. In the first, the dynamics and…
The simultaneous control of multiple coordinated robotic agents represents an elaborate problem. If solved, however, the interaction between the agents can lead to solutions to sophisticated problems. The concept of swarming, inspired by…
Living systems are capable of locomotion, reconfiguration, and replication. To perform these tasks, cells spatiotemporally coordinate the interactions of force-generating, "active" molecules that create and manipulate non-equilibrium…
Swarm robotics has potential for a wide variety of applications, but real-world deployments remain rare due to the difficulty of predicting emergent behaviors arising from simple local interactions. Traditional engineering approaches design…
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…
Active matter systems use their internal or ambient source of energy and dissipate them at the scale of individual constituent particles to generate motion. Direct measurement of the energy influx for individual particles has not been…
Two the most common tasks for autonomous mobile robots is to explore the environment and locate a target. %In the last case, the objective is either to find a target in the shortest time possible or, alternatively, to find %as many targets…
Robots interacting with the physical world plan with models of physics. We advocate that robots interacting with people need to plan with models of cognition. This writeup summarizes the insights we have gained in integrating computational…
The chapter presents some new approaches to describing the collective behavior of complex systems of mathematical biology based on the evolution equations of observables such as open systems. This representation of kinetic evolution has…
Active matter agents consume internal energy or extract energy from the environment for locomotion and force generation. Already rather generic models, such as ensembles of active Brownian particles, exhibit phenomena, which are absent at…
Flocks of animals represent a fascinating archetype of collective behavior in the macroscopic classical world, where the constituents, such as birds, concertedly perform motions and actions as if being one single entity. Here, we address…
The design of amorphous entangled systems, specifically from soft and active materials, has the potential to open exciting new classes of active, shape-shifting, and task-capable 'smart' materials. However, the global emergent mechanics…
Soft robots have demonstrated superior flexibility and functionality than conventional rigid robots. These versatile devices can respond to a wide range of external stimuli (including light, magnetic field, heat, electric field, etc.), and…
This essay provides a critical overview of the mathematical kinetic theory of active particles, which is used to model and study collective systems consisting of interacting living entities, such as those involved in behavior and evolution.…
Synthetic active collectives, composed of many nonliving individuals capable of cooperative changes in group shape and dynamics, hold promise for practical applications and for the elucidation of guiding principles of natural collectives.…
We consider problems in which robots conspire to present a view of the world that differs from reality. The inquiry is motivated by the problem of validating robot behavior physically despite there being a discrepancy between the robots we…
Taking inspiration from the crawling motion of biological cells on a substrate, we consider a physical model of self-propulsion where the spatio-temporal driving can involve both, a mechanical actuation by active force couples, and a…
We address the challenging problem of robotic grasping and manipulation in the presence of uncertainty. This uncertainty is due to noisy sensing, inaccurate models and hard-to-predict environment dynamics. We quantify the importance of…
Intelligent systems are increasingly part of our everyday lives and have been integrated seamlessly to the point where it is difficult to imagine a world without them. Physical manifestations of those systems on the other hand, in the form…
Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…