Tiny swarms, big impact: Researchers engineering adaptive magnetic systems for medicine, energy and environment

(Press-News.org) Rice University is partnering with researchers at the University of Washington, Columbia University and Louisiana State University on a $2 million award from the National Science Foundation to revolutionize how materials and microrobots can be designed, controlled and applied in real-world environments.

Funded through NSF’s Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program, the four-year project — Adaptive and Responsive Magnetic Swarms (ARMS) — aims to create microscopic robotic swarms that move and think collectively, much like schools of fish or flocks of birds.

Led by principal investigator Zach Sherman at Washington, the team includes Sibani Lisa Biswal, chair of Rice’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering; Kyle Bishop, professor of chemical engineering at Columbia; and Bhuvnesh Bharti, Anding Endowed Associate Professor in the Cain Department of Chemical Engineering at LSU.

“By integrating modeling, simulation and experiment, we hope to engineer materials that don’t just respond to their surroundings but actively adapt,” Sherman said. “These magnetic swarms could one day deliver medicine in the body, clean contaminated water or inspect pipelines — all at scales where traditional robots can’t operate.”

The ARMS project focuses on building and steering micron-scale magnetic colloidal particles that can self-organize and navigate complex terrains. The swarms are activated by time-varying magnetic fields — essentially external controllers that direct collective motion through fluids, over surfaces and around obstacles.

The researchers will combine large-scale computer simulations, analytical theory and experimental testing to uncover the design principles behind adaptive collective motion. Their work could lead to programmable materials capable of dynamic reconfiguration and targeted delivery.

“We’re inspired by nature’s ability to organize simple units into complex, responsive systems,” Biswal said. “By understanding those dynamics at the microscopic level, we can translate them into new materials that think and move.”

Beyond advancing materials science, the project will train K-12, undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary research that spans physics, chemistry, computation and engineering. Outreach efforts will aim to boost scientific literacy and workforce readiness in emerging materials technologies.

The DMREF program, NSF’s primary response to the federal Materials Genome Initiative, brings together scientists across disciplines to accelerate the discovery and deployment of advanced materials. By fostering collaboration among academia, government and industry, DMREF aims to double the pace of materials innovation at a fraction of the traditional cost.

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