  Synthetic nanomotors powered by chemical reactions have been designed to act
as vehicles for active cargo transport, drug delivery as well as a variety of
other uses. Collections of such motors, acting in consort, can self-assemble to
form swarms or clusters, providing opportunities for applications on various
length scales. While such collective behavior has been studied when the motors
move in a chemically inactive fluid environment, when the medium in which they
move is a chemical network that supports complex spatial and temporal patterns,
through simulation and theoretical analysis we show that collective behavior
changes. Spatial patterns in the environment can guide and control motor
collective states, and interactions of the motors with their environment can
give rise to distinctive spatiotemporal motor patterns. The results are
illustrated by studies of the motor dynamics in systems that support Turing
patterns and spiral waves. This work is relevant for potential applications
that involve many active nanomotors moving in complex chemical or biological
environments.
