A macroscopic model for a system of swarming agents using curvature control (Q548131)

In the case of modeling swarming behavior (flock of birds, school of fish, the displacement of ants), a key question is how to relate the collective behavior of large groups of agents to simple individual mechanisms. Usually, it is done basing on the derivation of macroscopic equations from individual based model. In this paper, a new model of collective behavior is introduced where agents control their motion by changing the curvature of their trajectory. This model, called persistent turning walker with alignment (PTWA), is a combination of the Vicsek alignment model and the persistent turning walker (PTW) model of motion by curvature control as a model designed to fit measured trajectories of an individual fish. In the paper we have a model that describes how each individual is influenced by the average velocity of its surrounding neighbors. This is in contradiction to the Vicsek model where particles are directly modifying their velocity as a result of the interaction. In the paper we have also a presentation of the macroscopic limit of this new model. It is intended to provide a simplified description of the system at large scales. The macroscopic model consists of a conservation equation for the local particle density and an evolution equation for the average velocity, which is constrained to be of unit norm. For this model we have a proof (Section 3) and the study of some its properties with numerical results (Section 4). Two appendices give proofs of lemmas used in the article.