Collective motion of a class of social foraging swarms

This paper considers a class of social foraging swarms with a nutrient profile (or an attractant/repellent) and an attraction-repulsion coupling function, which is chosen to guarantee collision avoidance between individuals. The paper also studies non-identical interaction ability or efficiency among different swarm individuals for different profiles. The swarm behavior is a result of a balance between inter-individual interplays as well as the interplays of the swarm individuals (agents) with their environment. It is proved that the individuals of a quasi-reciprocal swarm will aggregate and eventually form a cohesive cluster of finite size for different profiles. It is also shown that the swarm system is completely stable, that is, every solution converges to the set of equilibrium points of the system. Moreover, all the swarm individuals will converge to more favorable areas of the profile under certain conditions. For general non-reciprocal swarms, numerical simulations show that more complex self-organized rotation may occur in the swarms. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.