  From fireflies to heart cells, many systems in Nature show the remarkable
ability to spontaneously fall into synchrony. By imitating Nature's success at
self-synchronizing, scientists have designed cost-effective methods to achieve
synchrony in the lab, with applications ranging from wireless sensor networks
to radio transmission. A similar story has occurred in the study of swarms,
where inspiration from the behavior flocks of birds and schools of fish has led
to 'low-footprint' algorithms for multi-robot systems. Here, we continue this
'bio-inspired' tradition, by speculating on the technological benefit of fusing
swarming with synchronization. The subject of recent theoretical work, minimal
models of so-called 'swarmalator' systems exhibit rich spatiotemporal patterns,
hinting at utility in 'bottom-up' robotic swarms. We review the theoretical
work on swarmalators, identify possible realizations in Nature, and discuss
their potential applications in technology.
