Group Chase and Escape of Biological Groups Based on a Visual Perception-Decision-Propulsion Model

A relatively simple and local interaction between individuals produces coordinated and ordered collective behaviors that are widespread at all levels of biological groups. Group chase and escape is an important aspect in the field of collective behavior, particularly in regard to predation events in species interactions. Compared with other aspects of collective behavior, less research has been performed on this aspect, and the existing models are constructed only from the phenomenological perspective. We present an individual-based model named Visual Perception-Decision-Propulsion to explore the group chase and escape of biological groups and define several evaluation indicators to assess different aspects of this problem. Within this model, 2 types of self-propulsion individuals, i.e., predators and prey, are considered, and we consider the alignment and repulsion term between homogeneous individuals. Chase and escape are described as the escape (or chase) term between heterogeneous individuals. Based on the model, we identify and distinguish between 2 capture patterns, i.e., cooperative capture and separative capture. Then, we control the internal parameters to analyze the condition of these 2 patterns for production, and the external empirical parameters are adjusted to explore their effect on these 2 patterns. Hence, this paper provides a novel model for group chase and escape based on biological vision to compensate for the shortcomings of classical models and help apply the characteristics of biological groups to human-made swarm systems in the case of confrontation.