Birds flock in order to forage and move more efficiently. Fish school to avoid predators. And bees swarm to reproduce. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have sought to mimic these natural behaviors as a way to potentially improve search-and-rescue operations or to identify areas of wildfire spread over vast areas—largely through coordinated drone or robotic movements. However, developing a means to control and utilize this type of AI—or “swarm intelligence”—has proved challenging.

In a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, an international team of scientists describes a framework designed to advance swarm intelligence—by controlling flocking and swarming in ways that are akin to what occurs in nature.

“One of the great challenges of designing robotic swarms is finding a decentralized control mechanism,” explains Matan Yah Ben Zion, an assistant professor at the Donders Center for Cognition at the Netherlands’ Radboud University and one of the authors of the paper.

“Fish, bees, and birds do this very well—they form magnificent structures and function without a singular leader or a directive. By contrast, synthetic swarms are nowhere near as agile—and controlling them for large-scale purposes is not yet possible.”

The research team, which included NYU scientists Mathias Casiulis and Stefano Martiniani, addressed these challenges by developing geometric design rules for the clustering of self-propelled particles. These rules are modeled using natural computation—similar to the “positive” or “negative” charges in protons and electrons that are foundational to the formation of matter.

Under these rules, active particles moving in response to external forces have an intrinsic property that causes them to curve—a quantity the researchers call “curvity.”

“This curvature drives the collective behavior of the swarm, which points to a means to potentially control whether the swarm flocks, flows, or clusters,” explains NYU’s Martiniani, an assistant professor of physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

Their conclusion was supported by a series of experiments in which the scientists showed that the curvature-based criterion controls robot-pair attraction and naturally extends to thousands of robots. Each robot was treated as having a positive or negative curvity, and similar to electric charge, this curvity controls the robots’ mutual interactions.

“This charge-like quantity, which we call ‘curvity,” can take positive or negative values and can be directly encoded into the mechanical structure of the robot,” explains Ben Zion.

“As with particle charges, the value of the curvity determines how robots become attracted to one another in order to cluster or deflect from one another in order to flock.”

Ben Zion, who, as an NYU student, previously developed microscopic swimmers, added, “Finding a design rule of geometric nature, such as curvature, makes it applicable to industrial or delivery robots or to cellular-sized microscopic robots that have the potential to improve drug delivery and other medical treatments.”

“The best part is that these rules are based on elementary mechanics, making their implementation in a physical robot straightforward,” adds Casiulis, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University’s Center for Soft Matter Research and NYU’s Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry.

“More broadly, this work transforms the challenge of controlling swarms into an exercise in materials science, offering a simple design rule to inform future swarm engineering.”

Nuclear energy is a leading option to power space exploration, but its success depends on reactors that can operate autonomously rather than relying on human operators in space.

To help make that vision a reality, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has built a non-nuclear test bed that mimics the conditions of a space nuclear reactor to overcome the high cost and strict regulations required for testing in a reactor environment. The research is published in the journal Energies.

This “hardware-in-the-loop” system—a system combining real hardware with computer models to simulate conditions—enables NASA and industry partners to rapidly develop and validate autonomous controls and hardware using cost-effective components and open-source software.

“Our test bed gives engineers the ability to push autonomous control systems to their limits in a safe, repeatable environment,” said ORNL’s Brandon Wilson. “That means we can identify and solve problems here on Earth—before astronauts rely on these systems millions of miles from home.”

Are you gonna collaborate?

Yeah.

All right. What’s your favorite sandwich?

That’s a tough one because I love all of them. I would say a New Jersey sub from this institution called Sorrento’s around Freehold. A Number 14, which is a combination, I believe, of like Number 7 and Number 12. [Eds. note: Sorrento’s menu says the Number 14 is a combo of a Number 5 and a Number 12 called the Pig Special.] So an Italian sub from a real New Jersey institution, and if not that, then a Wawa Club sandwich.

I really appreciate how specific that was. Thank you. First video game you ever bought?

I pirated a lot because I was in Turkey growing up, so it was virtually impossible for us to get like a lot of video games. As far as purchase, it could be Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PlayStation 2, or I guess a Pokémon game.

So let’s rewind 34 years. You were born in New Jersey. You spent the majority of your childhood in Turkey.

Yeah.

You’ve talked before about that upbringing. You’ve characterized it as a very privileged one. How did that experience, now that you’re able to look back and reflect, affect your worldview? How does that turn you into the person that you are today?

There’s massive income inequality in Turkey that almost resembles America now, but that’s still far worse in Turkey. For that reason, if you’re above board, if you’re relatively affluent, you come across as very wealthy in comparison to the average person.

I’ve never sheltered people from that truth, but I did grow up fairly affluent. It was very positive in the sense that I didn’t have to worry about making ends meet or having to take on a job or anything like that. My parents’ main concern was to make sure that I wasn’t spoiled, so I didn’t get everything I wanted.

Outside of that, I would say that as a young boy I was sent to public school in Turkey. I think it was a good thing that my parents did that because it made me understand that there were very different income brackets with people living in very different conditions.

You moved to the United States for college, right? What was surprising to you about that transition?

When I came to college, this is literally what I wanted. Other people were like, “I want to be an astronaut,” “I want to be a teacher,” “I want to be a race car driver.” I was like, “I want to go to college in America.”

So I loved it. I was so stoked to be here, and I had all of these beliefs. You know, this is a land of freedom, land of prosperity, right?

Right.

This is where I’m gonna make a name for myself, make a career for myself.

Slowly but surely, experiences growing up or going to college and then onwards living in America, slowly chipped away at that dream. Piece by piece.

Yeah.

It’s interesting because in comparison to other fresh-off-the-boat immigrant stories, I did it. I am living the American dream, but I just realized that it’s not something that is readily accessible for all.