Device and programming abstractions for spatiotemporal control of active micro-particle swarms

Area of Science:

• Microfluidics
• Biotechnology
• Collective behavior

Background:

• Microscopic agents like Euglena gracilis exhibit phototaxis.
• Controlling swarms of microorganisms in microfluidic devices is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a hardware setup and programming language for spatiotemporal control of micro-organism swarms.
• To demonstrate the utility of this system through a biotic game.

Main Methods:

• Utilized spatiotemporal light stimuli to direct Euglena gracilis motion.
• Developed three programming abstractions: stimulus space, swarm space, and system space.
• Created a scripting language for swarm manipulation within a microfluidic chip.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated interactive control of a micro-organism swarm.
• Implemented a multi-level proof-of-concept biotic game.
• Established executable commands for precise swarm manipulation.

Conclusions:

• The developed device and programming concepts offer enhanced capabilities for manipulating natural and synthetic swarms.
• Future applications include on-chip processing, diagnostics, education, and research on collective behaviors.