Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 2, 2026

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
Juggling motion in a system of motile coupled oscillators
Masatomo Iwasa1, Kazuki Iida, Dan Tanaka
1Department of Complex Systems Science, Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan. miwasa@r.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
A particular dynamic steady state emerging in the swarm oscillator model--a system of interacting motile elements with an internal degree of freedom--is presented. In the state, elements form a rotating triangle whose corners appear to catch and throw elements. This motion is referred to as "juggling motion" in this paper. How this motion is maintained is studied theoretically. In particular, the five-element system, the minimum system that exhibits the motion, is investigated. With the help of the analysis of the two-element system, several factors essential to maintaining this motion are obtained.
Related Concept Videos
Oscillations about an Equilibrium Position
Forced Oscillations
Damped Oscillations
Although friction and other non-conservative...
Oscillations In An LC Circuit
Simple Harmonic Motion
Simple Harmonic Motion and Uniform Circular Motion
There is an easy way to produce simple harmonic motion by using uniform circular motion. For instance, consider a ball attached to a uniformly rotating...

