Shepherding Behaviors

Shepherding behaviors are a type of flocking behavior in which outside agents guide or control members of a flock. Shepherding behaviors can be found in various forms in nature. For example, herding, covering, patrolling and collecting are common types of shepherding behaviors. In this work, we investigate ways to simulate these types of behaviors. A shepherd uses roadmaps to steer the flock and to re-group separated flock members. This paper focuses on improving the shepherd's movements to gain better control of the flock's motion and use this improved control to demonstrate a wider variety of shepherding behaviors.

Authors

• Jyh-Ming Lien
• O. Burçhan Bayazit
• Ross T. Sowell
• Samuel Rodríguez
• Nancy M. Amato

Keywords

• Motion control
• Petroleum
• Computational modeling
• Robot kinematics
• Computer simulation
• Animation
• Force control
• Agriculture
• Protection
• Scattering
• Straight Line
• Current Position
• External Agents
• Safe Zone
• Shepherd Dogs
• Node Dynamics
• Flock Size