Over billions of years of evolution, motile organisms have developed complex strategies to survive and thrive. These strategies integrate three components: sensors, actuators, and information processing. In the last two decades, active-matter research has tried to replicate the evolutionary success of microorganisms in artificial systems. Researchers have replicated the actuators by developing artificial active particles that extract energy from their environment to perform mechanical work and, to a lesser extent, the sensors, by making these active particles adjust their motion properties to physical cues.
However, these artificial particles are still largely incapable of autonomous information processing, which is limiting the scientific insight and technological applications of active matter. The main challenges are: 1. Make active particles capable of autonomous information processing. 2. Optimize the behavioral strategies of individual active particles. 3. Optimize the interactions between active particles.
Drawing inspiration from Nature, this project aims at taking the next steps in the evolution of artificial active matter systems by endowing them with embodied intelligence and autonomous information processing abilities. Specifically, it will: 1. Realize microscopic active particles with embodied intelligence (microbots). 2. Use embodied intelligence to achieve optimal behaviors for the microbots. 3. Use embodied intelligence to engineer interactions between microbots.
