Acoustic signaling enables collective perception and control in active matter systems

• Main Authors: Ziepke, Alexander, Maryshev, Ivan, Aranson, Igor S, Frey, Erwin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 03-10-2024
• Subjects: Physics - Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems; Physics - Biological Physics; Physics - Soft Condensed Matter
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2410.02940

Emergent cooperative functionality in active matter systems plays a crucial
role in various applications of active swarms, ranging from pollutant foraging
and collective threat detection to tissue embolization. In nature, animals like
bats and whales use acoustic signals to communicate and enhance their
evolutionary competitiveness. Here, we show that information exchange by
acoustic waves between active agents creates a large variety of multifunctional
structures. In our realization of collective swarms, each unit is equipped with
an acoustic emitter and a detector. The swarmers respond to the resulting
acoustic field by adjusting their emission frequency and migrating toward the
strongest signal. We find self-organized structures with different morphology,
including snake-like self-propelled entities, localized aggregates, and
spinning rings. These collective swarms exhibit emergent functionalities, such
as phenotype robustness, collective decision-making, and environmental sensing.
For instance, the collectives show self-regeneration after strong distortion,
allowing them to penetrate through narrow constrictions. Additionally, they
exhibit a population-scale perception of reflecting objects and a collective
response to acoustic control inputs. Our results provide insights into
fundamental organization mechanisms in information-exchanging swarms. They may
inspire design principles for technical implementations in the form of
acoustically or electromagnetically communicating microrobotic swarms capable
of performing complex tasks and concerting collective responses to external
cues.