Delayed feedback control of active particles: a controlled journey towards the destination

• Published in: Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP Vol. 21; no. 25; pp. 13776 - 13787
• Main Authors: Khadem, S. M. J, Klapp, Sabine H. L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 26.06.2019
• Subjects: Active control; Control systems; Feedback control; Optical trapping; Orientation
• ISSN: 1463-9076; 1463-9084
• DOI: 10.1039/c9cp00495e

We explore theoretically the navigation of an active particle based on delayed feedback control. The delayed feedback enters in our expression for the particle orientation which, for an active particle, determines (up to noise) the direction of motion in the next time step. Here we estimate the orientation by comparing the delayed position of the particle with the actual one. This method does not require any real-time monitoring of the particle orientation and may thus be relevant also for controlling sub-micron sized particles, where the imaging process is not easily feasible. We apply the delayed feedback strategy to two experimentally relevant situations, namely, optical trapping and photon nudging. To investigate the performance of our strategy, we calculate the mean arrival time analytically (exploiting a small-delay approximation) and by simulations. Orientation of an active particle could be estimated by comparing its delayed position with the actual one. Therefore, steering process does not require any real-time monitoring of the particle orientation.