Vibration-Controlled Task-Oriented Robot

Understanding how complex behaviors present themselves in nature – from schools of fish to bee swarms to moving crowds – persists as a challenge to statistical mechanics and complex systems science. Progress is often limited by the deficiency of accessible physical robots capable of producing controlled, stochastic motion, for emergent property experimentation. Our project presents a low-cost robotic system that utilizes vibration-driven randomized adjustable motion patterns. Once deployed in a group, we create a physical environment in which one agent provides to complex collective dynamics. This physical robot platform will be a model for a collective motion and serve as a bridge between theoretical models and real-world environments, enabling investigation into emergent motion in multi-agent systems.