Understanding Fundamental Principles of Emergent Collective Behavior from Simple Bristlebots

While it’s known that simple interactions between active constituents reproduces collective phenomena such as flocking and schooling, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of emergent collective behaviors arising from different kinds of interactions, increasingly relevant in the modern era. Take connected vehicles as an example: increasingly sophisticated sensors and software are being used to make complex decisions, and a basic understanding of how these changes in vehicular interactions in turn affects collective behaviors such as traffic is unknown. We built a model platform for studying various emergent collective behaviors in the real world, using customizable low-cost bristlebots. We find that certain intrinsic behaviors of the bristlebots such as shape and confinement significantly affect collective behaviors. Ultimately, our system provides an accessible, low-cost model to experimentally study and understand fundamental principles of collective behavior, highly relevant in the modern era.