Swarming
spatial self-organization

​Swarming coupled oscillators exhibit spatial and temporal self-organization; the mobile agents move as a function of their oscillatory phase interactions and their phase interactions behave as a function of their relative motions. The dual coupling between spatial motion and phase behavior enables this abstract mathematical framework to unleash a diverse range of static and dynamic collective behaviors that mimic natural and artificial swarming behaviors, aid in the characterization of microrobot collective systems, and are helping us develop more advanced microrobot swarms. (As depicted above, spatial aggregation as a function of internal agent phase is enabled by a tunable spatial-phase coupling parameter, J, and synchronization is enabled by a tunable phase coupling parameter, K.) In the SAM Lab, we are interested in studying the emergent collective behaviors and their uses at the macro- and micron scales and in using control theory to optimize the coupling interactions so that the swarm creates a desired formation, moves in a specific trajectory, and accomplishes specific tasks without each agent knowing or considering the collective’s objective at hand.

Some of the many emergent collective behaviors exhibited by swarmalators