A review of swarmalators and their potential in bio-inspired computing

摘要

From fireies to heart cells, many systems in Nature show the remarkable ability to spontaneously fall intosynchrony. By imitating Nature's success at self-synchronizing, scientists have designed cost-effective methodsto achieve synchrony in the lab, with applications ranging from wireless sensor networks to radio transmission.A similar story has occurred in the study of swarms, where inspiration from the behavior ocks of birds andschools of fish has led to low-footprint algorithms for multi-robot systems. Here, we continue this 'bio-inspired'tradition, by speculating on the technological benefit of fusing swarming with synchronization. The subject ofrecent theoretical work, minimal models of so-called 'swarmalator' systems exhibit rich spatiotemporal patterns,hinting at utility in 'bottom-up' robotic swarms. We review the theoretical work on swarmalators, identifypossible realizations in Nature, and discuss their potential applications in technology.