Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.
Science. 2019 Apr 5;364(6435):70-74. doi: 10.1126/science.aau5347.
Group formation in living systems typically results from a delicate balance of repulsive, aligning, and attractive interactions. We found that a mere motility change of the individuals in response to the visual perception of their peers induces group formation and cohesion. We tested this principle in a real system of active particles whose motilities are controlled by an external feedback loop. For narrow fields of view, individuals gathered into cohesive nonpolarized groups without requiring active reorientations. For wider fields of view, cohesion could be achieved by lowering the response threshold. We expect this motility-induced cohesion mechanism to be relevant not only for the self-organization of living systems, but also for the design of robust and scalable autonomous systems.
在生命系统中，群体的形成通常是由于排斥、对齐和吸引相互作用之间的微妙平衡。我们发现，个体仅仅通过对同伴的视觉感知做出反应而改变其运动性，就可以诱导群体的形成和凝聚。我们在一个由活性粒子组成的真实系统中验证了这一原理，该系统中的个体运动性由外部反馈回路控制。在较窄的视野中，个体无需主动重新定向就能聚集形成具有凝聚力的非极化群体。在较宽的视野中，可以通过降低响应阈值来实现凝聚力。我们预计，这种由运动性引起的凝聚机制不仅与生命系统的自组织有关，而且与稳健和可扩展的自治系统的设计有关。
