# The Dynamics of Interacting Swarms

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how communication delays affect the collision dynamics of self-propelled swarms, revealing that delays hinder flock cohesion and significantly alter interaction outcomes such as flocking, milling, and scattering.

## Contribution

It introduces a generalized swarm model incorporating communication delays and analyzes their impact on swarm interaction behaviors.

## Key findings

- Delayed communication reduces flock cohesion.
- Parameter variations significantly change swarm interaction outcomes.
- Swarm behaviors like flocking, milling, and scattering are sensitive to delay and coupling parameters.

## Abstract

Swarms are self-organized dynamical coupled agents which evolve from simple rules of communication. They are ubiquitous in nature, and be- coming more prominent in defense applications. Here we report on a preliminary study of swarm collisions for a swarm model in which each agent is self-propelling but globally communicates with other agents. We generalize previous models by investigating the interacting dynamics when delay is introduced to the communicating agents. One of our major find- ings is that interacting swarms are far less likely to flock cohesively if they are coupled with delay. In addition, parameter ranges based on coupling strength, incidence angle of collision, and delay change dramatically for other swarm interactions which result in flocking, milling, and scattering.