Contributed talk

Self-propelled rotating decanol droplets

Linda Bondorf, Jitka Cejkova

Over the past few decades, droplet systems became popular in artificial life research as the model systems mimicking some of the behaviours of living cells or small organisms. It is known, that self-propelled objects in the form of droplets or small particles (for example camphor boats) can convert energy from the environment into motion. These motions include nonlinear behaviour such as oscillations, synchronization, bifurcation, and pattern formation. At previous ALIFE conferences, we have shown already, how the decanol droplets placed into the aqueous solution of sodium decanoate can move chemotactically, serve as transporters of chemicals and small objects, change the shape or behave collectively. This year, we would like to present new results related to long-term rotations of droplets. Recently, we have observed that decanol droplets in decanoate solution on glass show long lasting, rotational movement of a fibre on the interface of the droplet with oscillating velocity. It will be discussed how the angular velocity and oscillation frequency depend on the position of the fibre on the droplet. The future work will focus on using small 3D printed arms and legs instead of simple fibres to move our idea of “droplets as liquid robots” further.