Aggregating swarms through morphology handling design contingencies: from the sweet spot to a rich expressivity

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2601.07610v1
• Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:58:47 GMT
• Title: Aggregating swarms through morphology handling design contingencies: from the sweet spot to a rich expressivity
• Abstract summary: We build on a faithful physical model of the self-aligning dynamics of the robots.<n>We show that exploring a range of self-alignment strength allows for a rich expressivity of collective behaviors.
• Score: 0.12744523252873352
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: Morphological computing, the use of the physical design of a robot to ease the realization of a given task has been proven to be a relevant concept in the context of swarm robotics. Here we demonstrate both experimentally and numerically, that the success of such a strategy may heavily rely on the type of policy adopted by the robots, as well as on the details of the physical design. To do so, we consider a swarm of robots, composed of Kilobots embedded in an exoskeleton, the design of which controls the propensity of the robots to align or anti-align with the direction of the external force they experience. We find experimentally that the contrast that was observed between the two morphologies in the success rate of a simple phototactic task, where the robots were programmed to stop when entering a light region, becomes dramatic, if the robots are not allowed to stop, and can only slow down. Building on a faithful physical model of the self-aligning dynamics of the robots, we perform numerical simulations and demonstrate on one hand that a precise tuning of the self-aligning strength around a sweet spot is required to achieve an efficient phototactic behavior, on the other hand that exploring a range of self-alignment strength allows for a rich expressivity of collective behaviors.

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