This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Cooperative behavior is a common trait among animals, from films of bacteria, to flocks of birds, to schools of whales. Observations of such coordination between individuals have inspired computer scientists and roboticists to try to build swarm-inspired devices. Theoretical work has shown that individuals with simple behavioral and communication rules can exhibit complex swarming behavior. Nevertheless, there remains a need for experiments that clearly show the nature of information that is being exchanged between individuals. Ants are unique among cooperative animals in that they overcome physical obstacles by linking together to form self-assemblages such as ladders, chains, walls and rafts. This is a simplified type of swarm behavior, in which members of the swarm interact through physical contact with their nearest neighbors. Such a model system allows us to visualize, to a high degree, the dynamics and communication within the swarm. This system will be studied by adapting high-precision measurement devices called rheometers, typically used to study inanimate materials, to examine small-scale swarming behavior. The physical cues that the ants use to communicate will be determined and general principles for swarm robotics will be developed. Graduate students will be involved in the project and undergraduate students, including those from groups underrepresented in science and engineering, will be recruited to participate in the research. In addition, an after-school program about bio-inspired design will be initiated at a nearby high school.
