Influence of Sensorial Delay on Clustering and Swarming

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how sensorial delay influences collective behaviors like clustering and swarming in self-propelling agents, showing that short delays promote cluster formation while long or negative delays inhibit it, with implications for biological systems and robotic engineering.

Contribution

The study introduces a global clustering parameter based on Voronoi tessellation to quantify the effects of sensorial delay on collective motion in a Vicsek model.

Findings

Short delays enhance cluster and swarm formation.

Long or negative delays prevent clustering.

Sensorial delay can be used to control collective behavior.

Abstract

We show that sensorial delay alters the collective motion of self-propelling agents with aligning interactions: In a two-dimensional Vicsek model, short delays enhance the emergence of clusters and swarms, while long or negative delays prevent their formation. In order to quantify this phenomenon, we introduce a global clustering parameter based on the Voronoi tessellation, which permits us to efficiently measure the formation of clusters. Thanks to its simplicity, sensorial delay might already play a role in the organization of living organisms and can provide a powerful tool to engineer and dynamically tune the behavior of large ensembles of autonomous robots.