arXiv subjects

Yating Zheng

Publications and source records attributed to Yating Zheng.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Passivity-Driven Order-Disorder Transitions in Self-Aligning Active Matter

We study dense mixtures of passive and active self-aligning disks with isotropic or anisotropic mobility. We find that the passive fraction controls an order-disorder transition that is continuous in the isotropic case and discontinuous in the anisotropic one. A mean-field equation derived from the microscopic heading dynamics captures this dichotomy. Near the transition, both ordered regimes can exhibit multiple metastable oscillating or rotating states, depending on the spatial arrangement of passive particles and lattice defects, but with different transient dynamics: Systems with isotropic mobility visit multiple long-lived attractors during each simulation while systems with anisotropic mobility are trapped by a single attractor. Our results reveal the passive fraction as a physically relevant control parameter in active systems, leading to rich self-organizing dynamics.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2024

Collective dynamics of densely confined active polar disks with self- and mutual alignment

We study the emerging collective states in a simple mechanical model of a dense group of self-propelled polar disks with off-centered rotation, confined within a circular arena. Each disk presents self-alignment towards the sum of contact forces acting on it, resulting from disk-substrate interactions, while also displaying mutual alignment with neighbors due to having its center of rotation located a distance R behind its centroid so that central contact forces can also introduce torques. The effect of both alignment mechanisms produces a variety of collective states that combine high-frequency localized circular oscillations with low-frequency milling around the center of the arena, in fluid or solid regimes. We consider cases with small/large R values, isotropic/anisotropic disk-substrate damping, smooth/rough arena boundaries, different densities, and multiple systems sizes, showing that the emergent collective states that we identify are robust, generic, and potentially observable in real-world natural or artificial systems.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2024

Purely vision-based collective movement of robots

Collective movement inspired by animal groups promises inherited benefits for robot swarms, such as enhanced sensing and efficiency. However, while animals move in groups using only their local senses, robots often obey central control or use direct communication, introducing systemic weaknesses to the swarm. In the hope of addressing such vulnerabilities, developing bio-inspired decentralized swarms has been a major focus in recent decades. Yet, creating robots that move efficiently together using only local sensory information remains an extraordinary challenge. In this work, we present a decentralized, purely vision-based swarm of terrestrial robots. Within this novel framework robots achieve collisionless, polarized motion exclusively through minimal visual interactions, computing everything on board based on their individual camera streams, making central processing or direct communication obsolete. With agent-based simulations, we further show that using this model, even with a strictly limited field of view and within confined spaces, ordered group motion can emerge, while also highlighting key limitations. Our results offer a multitude of practical applications from hybrid societies coordinating collective movement without any common communication protocol, to advanced, decentralized vision-based robot swarms capable of diverse tasks in ever-changing environments.

cs.RO↗