Avoiding Collisions in Flocks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on automatic control Vol. 55; no. 5; pp. 1238 - 1243
• Main Authors: Cucker, Felipe, Jiu-Gang Dong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.05.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Automatic control; Autonomous agents; Avoidance; Birds; Collision avoidance; Collisions; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control theory. Systems; Convergence; convergence to consensus; Exact sciences and technology; Marine animals; Microorganisms; Mobile robots; Motion control; Nonlinear dynamics and nonlinear dynamical systems; particle systems; Physics; Remotely operated vehicles; Robot kinematics; Robot sensing systems; Robotics; Statistical physics, thermodynamics, and nonlinear dynamical systems; Synchronization ; coupled oscillators; Self organization; Initial conditions; convergence to consensus; Collective process; Minimal distance; Swarm intelligence; Modelling; Distributed system; Collision avoidance; particle systems; Consensus
• ISSN: 0018-9286; 1558-2523
• DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2010.2042355

Among the many models for flocking systems of interacting particles, the one introduced by Cucker and Smale has attracted attention due to the fact that a convergence to flocking (i.e., to a common velocity) could be established depending on conditions on the initial state of the system. In this note we extend this model by adding to it a repelling force between particles. We show that, for this modified model, convergence to flocking is established along the same lines while, in addition, avoidance of collisions (i.e., the respect of a minimal distance between particles) is ensured.