Collaborative Research: Mechanical Communication for Multi-agent Systems

在鱼群中游泳的鱼可以利用与邻居诱导的水流的水动力相互作用。大肠杆菌利用鞭毛成群结队地分泌并推动周围的介质，心脏细胞对其弹性环境施加力以影响细胞迁移。这些多智能体生物系统中的每一个都提供了一个例子，其中集体行为出现在浸泡在共同介质中的相似物体之间的低水平相互作用中，无论是流体还是弹性底物。例如，鱼群中的鱼向它们周围的流体(信息流)传递动量(信息被传递)，而邻近的鱼感受到可能影响运动(信息被接收)的结果物理变化。我们称之为通过环境媒体机械交流传递信息的机制。在这里，信息流以环境动力学的形式拥有自己的动力。然而，目前还不清楚个体代理人应该如何控制他们的移动，以从这种机械通信中受益。该项目将通过理论分析和移动机器人车辆的台式实验相结合的方式来应对这一挑战。该项目主要研究关节机器人的机械通信，这些机器人主动或被动地改变其内部形状，以同时移动和通信。在这样的多智能体系统中，单个智能体如何在运动和机械通信之间进行权衡是这项工作的主要动机。为了解决这一权衡问题，信息交换将分为三个关键块：发送、接收和移动。在这样做的过程中，工作试图回答一个系统是如何：1)运动来传输信息？2)传输信息来诱导运动？3)运动来接收信息？4)接收信息来诱导运动？这项工作的重点是了解机械耦合和非机车信息交换如何影响这些问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Fish swimming in schools could exploit hydrodynamic interactions with neighbor-induced flows. E coli bacteria secrete and push against a surrounding medium using flagella to meander in swarms, and cardiac cells exert forces on their elastic environments to influence cell migration. Each of these multi-agent biological systems provides an example wherein a collective behavior emerges from low-level interactions between similar bodies immersed in a common medium, either fluid or elastic substrate. For example, fish in a school impart momentum (information is transmitted) into their surrounding fluid (information flows) and the neighboring fish feel resultant physical changes that may impact locomotion (information is received). We term the mechanism for information transfer through ambient media mechanical communication. Here, information flow possesses dynamics of its own in the form of environment dynamics. However, it is not clear how individual agents should control their movement to benefit from this mechanical communication. This project will address this challenge through a combination of theoretical analysis and benchtop experiments with mobile robotic vehicles. This project focuses on mechanical communication for articulated robots that actively or passively change their internal shape to simultaneously locomote and communicate. How individual agents within such multi-agent systems tradeoff between locomotion and mechanical communication is a prime motivator of the work. To address this tradeoff, exchange of information will be separated into three key blocks: transmit, receive, and locomote. In doing so, the work seeks to answer how does a system: 1) Locomote to transmit information? 2) Transmit information to induce locomotion? 3) Locomote to receive information? 4) Receive information to induce locomotion? A focus of this work is to understand how mechanical coupling and non-locomoting information exchange impact these questions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.