Collective Motion with Anticipation: Flocking, Spinning, and Swarming

TL;DR

This paper explores how anticipation in self-propelled particles affects their collective behavior, revealing that anticipation suppresses flocking but induces spinning and swarming, with potential robotic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a simple anticipation mechanism that alters collective dynamics, leading to new self-organized phases like spinning and swarming in active matter systems.

Findings

Anticipation hinders homogeneous flocking patterns.

Anticipation promotes collective spinning and swarming behaviors.

Swarming occurs without cohesive interactions, enabling coherent movement.

Abstract

We investigate the collective dynamics of self-propelled particles able to probe and anticipate the orientation of their neighbors. We show that a simple anticipation strategy hinders the emergence of homogeneous flocking patterns. Yet, anticipation promotes two other forms of self-organization: collective spinning and swarming. In the spinning phase, all particles follow synchronous circular orbits, while in the swarming phase, the population condensates into a single compact swarm that cruises coherently without requiring any cohesive interactions. We quantitatively characterize and rationalize these phases of polar active matter and discuss potential applications to the design of swarming robots.