Wang Yibin, Chen Hui, Xie Leiming, Liu Jinbo, Zhang Li, Yu Jiangfan
School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518172, China.
Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, Shenzhen, 518172, China.
Adv Mater. 2025 Jan;37(2):e2312956. doi: 10.1002/adma.202312956. Epub 2024 May 2.
Swarm behaviors are common in nature, where individual organisms collaborate via perception, communication, and adaptation. Emulating these dynamics, large groups of active agents can self-organize through localized interactions, giving rise to complex swarm behaviors, which exhibit potential for applications across various domains. This review presents a comprehensive summary and perspective of synthetic swarms, to bridge the gap between the microscale individual agents and potential applications of synthetic swarms. It is begun by examining active agents, the fundamental units of synthetic swarms, to understand the origins of their motility and functionality in the presence of external stimuli. Then inter-agent communications and agent-environment communications that contribute to the swarm generation are summarized. Furthermore, the swarm behaviors reported to date and the emergence of machine intelligence within these behaviors are reviewed. Eventually, the applications enabled by distinct synthetic swarms are summarized. By discussing the emergent machine intelligence in swarm behaviors, insights are offered into the design and deployment of autonomous synthetic swarms for real-world applications.
群体行为在自然界中很常见，个体生物通过感知、通信和适应进行协作。模仿这些动态过程，大量的主动主体可以通过局部相互作用进行自组织，从而产生复杂的群体行为，这些行为在各个领域都具有应用潜力。本综述对合成群体进行了全面的总结和展望，以弥合微观尺度的个体主体与合成群体潜在应用之间的差距。首先研究主动主体，即合成群体的基本单元，以了解它们在外部刺激下运动性和功能性的起源。然后总结了促成群体形成的主体间通信和主体与环境的通信。此外，还回顾了迄今为止报道的群体行为以及这些行为中机器智能的出现。最后，总结了不同合成群体实现的应用。通过讨论群体行为中出现的机器智能，为自主合成群体在实际应用中的设计和部署提供了见解。
