Active Matter In Complex Environments

This book provides an expert introduction to active fluids systems, covering simple to complex environments.

Collective Behavior of Magnetic Micro/Nanorobots: Control, Imaging, and Applications reviews recent advances in the design and construction of magnetic collective micro/nanorobot systems, and promotes the bridging of the gap between their theoretical investigation and practical applications. By summarizing the recent progress in control, imaging, and biomedical applications of collective micro/nanorobots, the authors show the big picture of micro/nanorobotics and the roadmap of collective micro/nanorobots. They then discuss the control, imaging, and biomedical applications of collective micro/nanorobots, respectively, demonstrating the state-of-the-art techniques and ideas for designing systems of collective micro/nanorobots that can help researchers have a better understanding and further stimulate the development of such an exciting field. This book is suitable for scientists, engineers, and students involved in the study of robotics, control, materials, and mechanical/electrical engineering.

The first book on active matter, an emerging field focused on programming physical materials to assemble themselves, transform autonomously, and react to information. The past few decades brought a revolution in computer software and hardware; today we are on the cusp of a materials revolution. If yesterday we programmed computers and other machines, today we program matter itself. This has created new capabilities in design, computing, and fabrication, which allow us to program proteins and bacteria, to generate self-transforming wood products and architectural details, and to create clothing from “intelligent textiles” that grow themselves. This book offers essays and sample projects from the front lines of the emerging field of active matter. Active matter and programmable materials are at the intersection of science, art, design, and engineering, with applications in fields from biology and computer science to architecture and fashion. These essays contextualize current work and explore recent research. Sample projects, generously illustrated in color, show the range of possibilities envisioned by their makers. Contributors explore the design of active material at scales from nano to micro, kilo, and even planetary. They investigate processes of self-assembly at a microscopic level; test new materials that can sense and actuate themselves; and examine the potential of active matter in the built environment and in living and artificial systems. Active Matter is an essential guide to a field that could shape the future of design.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics of Small Systems" that was published in Entropy

This book presents a comprehensive review of various aspects of the novel and rapidly developing field of active matter, which encompasses a wide variety of self-organized self-driven energy-consuming media or agents. Most naturally occurring examples are of biological origin, spanning all scales from intracellular structures to swimming and crawling cells and microorganisms, to living tissues, bacterial colonies and flocks of birds. But the field also encompasses artificial systems, from colloids to soft robots. Intrinsically out of equilibrium and free of constraints of time-reversal symmetry, such systems display a range of surprising and unusual behaviors.​ In this book, the author emphasizes connections between fluid-mechanical, material, biological and technological aspects of active matter. He employs a minimum of mathematical tools, ensuring that the presentation is accessible to a wider scientific community. Richly illustrated, it gives the reader a clear picture of this fascinating field, its diverse phenomena and its open questions.