Individual and collective behavior of vibrating motors interacting through a resonant plate

David Mertens, Richard Weaver

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We report on experiments of many small motors-cell phone vibrators-glued to and interacting through a resonant elastic plate. We find that the motors tend to avoid frequencies that are just higher than the resonances of a plate, preferring instead frequencies just below those resonances. As a result, motors interacting through a resonant plate exhibit hysteresis in their frequency versus driving voltage. We also find that the stability of a single motor near a resonance is different from the stability of a group of motors near a resonance. When the driving voltage is constant and the transient behavior of the system has passed, we find that the average frequency of all the motors is constant.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)45-53
Number of pages9
JournalComplexity
Volume16
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011

Keywords

  • Hysteresis
  • Resonance
  • Synchronization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science
  • General

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