Welcome!

KOLab‘s core research interest is the mechanics of collective behavior. We are fascinated by:

• How do collectives behaviors emerge from interactions among individuals? — Emergence.
• How do individuals interact with one other and the fluid environment? — Mechanical intelligence.
• How can robot swarms self-organize like natural collectives? — Swarm Robotics.

Specifically, our recent focus has been on the hydrodynamic interaction in fish schools and underwater robots, where we ask (and try to answer!) how underwater swimmers affect each other hydrodynamically and how flow sensory information can be be used for self-organization.

We use a combination of biomimetic robotics, animal experiments, and numerical simulations to reveal new insights. We build fish-like robots to recreate how fish interact with each other and self-organize in water; we work with biologist to film and track fish schools under different conditions; we make sense of our experimental results and provide further predictions using agent-based models and other numerical techniques.

Beyond our core research mission, KOLab has a very broad interest! We are always cooking some curiosity-driven projects in the background, using our diverse research skills. We have published on the physics of tossing wok and examined the effect of lane changing in highway traffic. We also care deeply about social justice, constantly educating ourselves and doing small but mighty things to change the world!