Abstract: Collective systems are able to exhibit complex global dynamics through relatively simple local interactions, and they give us a powerful connection between nonequilibrium physics, active matter, and robotics. In this talk, I will present our work on understanding and controlling collective behavior across theoretical and experimental systems. I will first discuss experimental work involving magnetic microrobot collectives in which competing pairwise interactions enable reconfiguration between distinct states, locomotion, and environmental interactions. And when heterogeneity and asymmetric interactions are introduced, they can be used to program self-organization and generate various collective behaviors that include phase separation, morphology changes, and object manipulation. At the more theoretical level, I will discuss swarmalators, which are agents that simultaneously swarm and synchronize, and I will show how chirality, heterogeneity, multiple internal phases, and nonreciprocal interactions can enable fascinating and non-intuitive collective states, as well as be exploited to systematically control the collective to exhibit desired shape formation, navigation, and object manipulation, such that principles from active matter can be used for programmable collective robotic systems.


Contact: Silas Alben