Fascinating research from the Weizmann Institute is aiming to understand the cooperative behaviour of ants to deliver food to their nests.
Ants are well known for being able to carry/move much more than their body weight, but how do they know which way they're going? Who's role it is to do what? How do they correct their path? How is all of this information communicated? Can this be modeled somehow for human purposes such as creating a robot ant army or a flying drone army to autonomously deliver packages or rescue people from a wreckage...?
Ants are well known for being able to carry/move much more than their body weight, but how do they know which way they're going? Who's role it is to do what? How do they correct their path? How is all of this information communicated? Can this be modeled somehow for human purposes such as creating a robot ant army or a flying drone army to autonomously deliver packages or rescue people from a wreckage...?
The research describes how some ants act as 'lifters' and some as 'pullers' to physically move a piece of food (a cheerio!). 'Pullers' align their body parallel to the direction of motion to maximise the force exerted on the cheerio whereas 'lifters' simply lift the cheerio to reduce friction with the surface. As the cheerio moves, each individual ant corrects their body alignment and exerted force.
There are lead ants which regularly prod the collective group in the direction of the nest. They also describe how the roles of different ants can change during carrying, and how that is communicated to the group. There is essentially an 'unspoken' feedback mechanism whereby all corrections are made individually, but externally guided by the leader ants. The feedback sensitivity is such that the cheerios don't spin out of control, or that the cheerio doesn't overshoot its intended destination.
The research paper demonstrates the utility of using statistical physics to explain the motion of multi-component forcing to quite beautifully describe the collective motion of ants...!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0107-y
There are lead ants which regularly prod the collective group in the direction of the nest. They also describe how the roles of different ants can change during carrying, and how that is communicated to the group. There is essentially an 'unspoken' feedback mechanism whereby all corrections are made individually, but externally guided by the leader ants. The feedback sensitivity is such that the cheerios don't spin out of control, or that the cheerio doesn't overshoot its intended destination.
The research paper demonstrates the utility of using statistical physics to explain the motion of multi-component forcing to quite beautifully describe the collective motion of ants...!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0107-y
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