Solving the shepherding problem: heuristics for herding autonomous, interacting agents

Abstract

Herding of sheep by dogs is a powerful example of one individual causing many unwilling individuals to move in the same direction. Similar phenomena are central to crowd control, cleaning the environment and other engineering problems. Despite single dogs solving this ‘shepherding problem’ every day, it remains unknown which algorithm they employ or whether a general algorithm exists for shepherding. Here, we demonstrate such an algorithm, based on adaptive switching between collecting the agents when they are too dispersed and driving them once they are aggregated. Our algorithm reproduces key features of empirical data collected from sheep–dog interactions and suggests new ways in which robots can be designed to influence movements of living and artificial agents.

Robot Collection and Transport of Objects: A Biomimetic Process

“…Shepherding of sheep by dogs represents a caricature of this predator-prey interaction whereby the sheepdog maneuvers hundreds and sometimes thousands of livestock from one location to another (Strömbom et al, 2014). Engineers have long been fascinated by the act of shepherding and the behavioral rules that dogs adopt when herding since such knowledge may have application to engineering tasks as diverse as guiding groups of exploring robots (Turgut et al, 2008) to cleaning up the environment (Fingas, 2016).…”

“…Engineers have long been fascinated by the act of shepherding and the behavioral rules that dogs adopt when herding since such knowledge may have application to engineering tasks as diverse as guiding groups of exploring robots (Turgut et al, 2008) to cleaning up the environment (Fingas, 2016). To this end, Strömbom et al (2014) designed a general shepherding algorithm inspired by empirical data collected from real-life sheepdog interactions; it was proposed that the algorithm could support the efficient design of robots herding autonomous agents in a variety of contexts.…”

Robotic Herding of a Flock of Birds Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

“…It is generally well known that these algorithms may perform poorly when a single shepherd is employed [37]. Heuristic herding strategies used by solitary sheep dogs were modeled in [40] and used to design a strategy that enforces confinement to achieve herding. However, the design was not analyzed rigorously, which leaves open the question of its limitations and performance guarantees.…”

Herding by Caging: a Topological Approach towards Guiding Moving Agents via Mobile Robots

“…The possible applications of our problem are not limited to herding animals, [13,20,23]. For instance, one can use several mobile robots working cooperatively to evacuate people during emergency situations, [9].…”

“…In [13], the authors provided the first work on shepherding behaviors with large flock size. In [20], the authors propose a selfpropelled particle model of local attraction-repulsion type to model herding of a group of agents by one shepherd. The problem of herding cows using smart collars equipped with GPS and sound amplifiers was also considered in [4].…”