• Home
  • AS Physics
    • Particle Physics
    • Electromagnetic Radiation and Quantum Phenomena
    • Waves and Vibrations
  • A2 Physics
    • Gravity Fields and Potentials
    • Electric Fields and Potentials
    • Capacitance
    • Magnetic Fields and Induction
    • Thermal Physics
    • Gas Laws
    • Further Mechanics
    • Nuclear Physics
    • Special Topics
  • Downloads
  • Links
  • Physblog
  • Physics in Pictures
  • Contact
  • Donate
Physics A-Level

Ants Will Steal Your Cheerios... sort of

7/19/2018

1 Comment

 
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...?
Picture
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
1 Comment
law essay help uk link
8/23/2020 10:18:29 am

Weizmann institute is doing a wonderful and astonishing job in this particular research. They are finding specific behavior of ants when they provide and gather food to their nests. This research will help much in understanding the behavior.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    physbot

    Theres something interesting in the ether...

    Archives

    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed












Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.