Robot Herds: Group Behaviors for Systems with Significant Dynamics

Abstract

Birds, fish, and many other animals are able to move gracefully and efficiently as a herd, flock, or school. We would like to reproduce this behavior for herds of artificial creatures with significant dynamics. This paper develops an algorithm for grouping behaviors and evaluates the performance of the algorithm on two types of systems: a full dynamic simulation of a legged robot that must balance as well as move with the herd and a point mass with minimal dynamics. Robust control algorithms for group behaviors of dynamic systems will allow us to generate realistic motion for animation using high-level controls, to develop synthetic actors for use in virtual environments, mobile robotics, and perhaps to improve our understanding of the behavior of biological systems. 1 Introduction To run as a herd, animals must remain in close proximity while changing direction and velocity and while avoiding collisions with other members of the herd and obstacles in the environment. In this paper, w...