GRASPion: a robotic platform for active matter
By: Nicolas Vandewalle
From: GRASP, Department of Physics University of Liège — Sart Tilman B5a B-4000 Liège, Belgium
At: Building C2, room 2.4.16
[2026-05-28]
We have developed GRASPion, a miniature programmable robotic platform designed to act as a macroscopic active particle (www.graspion.be). Each GRASPion can follow prescribed trajectories, implement simple behavioral rules, and emulate interactions with neighbouring agents or with its environment. When encapsulated in a soft elastic membrane, GRASPions form Deformable Active Particles (DAPs), providing experimental analogues of motile cells and synthetic tissues. This approach makes it possible to investigate how self-propulsion, deformability, fluctuations, and confinement combine to generate emergent dynamics. It also opens the way to studying collective behaviors mediated not only by direct interactions, but also by stigmergy, where agents modify their environment and respond to the traces left by others.