Advertisement
Published in:
2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
2. A Biologically Inspired Approach to Collective Behaviors
Author : Roland Bouffanais
Published in: Design and Control of Swarm Dynamics
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.
Select sections of text to find matching patents with Artificial Intelligence. powered by
Select sections of text to find additional relevant content using AI-assisted search. powered by
Abstract
Animal groups provide paradigmatic examples of collective phenomena in which repeated interactions among individuals produce dynamic patterns and responses on a scale larger than individuals themselves. Some of the examples around us include the coordinated movements of fish and birds in a school or a flock, respectively, the chemotactic aggregation of amoebae, the formation of lanes in densely packed human crowds, the generation of vortices in bacterial colonies, the synchronized march of wingless locusts, and the synchronized flashing of fireflies. Many more examples can also be found inside all of us: the firing of neurons in our brains, the clustering of differentiated cells to construct our organs both during embryonic development and wound healing, and the targeted response of neutrophils as part of the initial immune response to a bacterial infection. This nonexhaustive list of collective behaviors of unicellular and multicellular organisms is revealing of the pervasiveness of swarming in the natural world.