English

Macroscopic descriptions of follower-leader systems

Analysis of PDEs 2022-07-25 v2 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

The fundamental derivation of macroscopic model equations to describe swarms based on microscopic movement laws and mathematical analyses into their self-organisation capabilities remains a challenge from the perspective of both modelling and analysis. In this paper we clarify relevant continuous macroscopic model equations that describe follower-leader interactions for a swarm where these two populations are fixed. We study the behaviour of the swarm over long and short time scales to shed light on the number of leaders needed to initiate swarm movement, according to the homogeneous or inhomogeneous nature of the interaction (alignment) kernel. The results indicate the crucial role played by the interaction kernel to model transient behaviour.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.00284,
  title  = {Macroscopic descriptions of follower-leader systems},
  author = {Sara Bernardi and Gissell Estrada-Rodriguez and Heiko Gimperlein and Kevin J. Painter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.00284},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

22 pages, accepted for publication in Kinetic and Related Models

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:37:04.462Z