Université de Fribourg

Optimal view angle in collective dynamics of self-propelled agents

Tian, Bao-Mei ; Yang, Han-Xin ; Li, Wei ; Wang, Wen-Xu ; Wang, Bing-Hong ; Zhou, Tao

In: Physical Review E, 2009, vol. 79, no. 5, p. 052102

We study a system of self-propelled agents with the restricted vision. The field of vision of each agent is only a sector of disk bounded by two radii and the included arc. The inclination of these two radii is characterized by the view angle. The consideration of restricted vision is closer to the reality because natural swarms usually do not have a panoramic view. Interestingly, we find that...

Université de Fribourg

Singularities and symmetry breaking in swarms

Li, Wei ; Zhang, Hai-Tao ; Chen, Michael ZhiQiang ; Zhou, Tao

In: Physical Review E, 2008, vol. 77, no. 5, p. 021920

A large-scale system consisting of self-propelled particles, moving under the directional alignment rule (DAR), can often self-organize to an ordered state that emerges from an initially rotationally symmetric configuration. It is commonly accepted that the DAR, which leads to effective long-range interactions, is the underlying mechanism contributing to the collective motion. However, in this...