People

I am investigating the collective movement of locusts using individual tracking of agents and incorporating information theory to infer different causal interactions that constitute the collective migration of locusts. In another approach, I also use the Eulerian framework, specifically Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), to describe the macroscopic flow patterns in locust swarms. By combining causality analysis from information theory with PIV-based flow characterization, I aim to uncover the underlying principles governing active turbulence in collective migration.

Ruiheng is interested in developing and applying computer science technologies to study animal behavior. During his Ph.D. training, he will mainly focus on developing the next generation of VR for fish. (Co-supervised with Oliver Deussen and Iain Couzin)

Bioinspired robotics and soft robots. (Co-supervised with Iain Couzin)

Nicole is a master’s student working on inverse reinforcement learning in predator–prey behavior.

Iain Couzin is Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behaviour, and the Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz, Germany. We are working on collective animal behavior using real and virtual robotics.

Daniel has a background in physics but over the years studied many types of collectives at multiple levels (amoebae, fish, lymphocytes, and termites). We are collaborating to study collective behavior using a virtual reality system at Konstanz.

Prof. Xie is a professor at Peking University. He is interested in bio-inspired robotics, multi-agent systems, etc. We are working on bio-inspired robotics. 

Heiko Hamann is a professor at the University of Konstanz.

Oliver Deussen is a professor at the University of Konstanz.

Andreagiovanni Reina is a Group Leader at the University of Konstanz.

Turtlebot is one of our robotic platforms to test sensory-motor control in collectives. 

JetBot is a robot platform for education and vision-based control platform. 

Freenove robot platform is mainly for education and one member of swarm robots. 

PiCar is another platform for education and swarm robots. 

Osoyoo Raspberry Pi is our new swarm robot platform. 

Dr. Chao is interested in the interdisciplinary field between animal behavior and flow dynamics. Based on numerical and experimental experiments, he wants to understand how individuals transfer information to their local neighbors by controlling and sensing hydrodynamics to make movement decisions within a group. 

Siyuan Wang is interested in underwater robots and bionic sensing. He mainly focuses on the design, control, modeling, and optimization of microrobots for fish behavior studies. (Co-supervised with Prof. Minyi Xu)

Jonathan is working on 3D fish eye tracking using multiple cameras.

Jannik is working on inverse reinforcement learning to understand predator-prey interactions.

Bhargavsinh is working on bioinspired geometric decision-making with drones.