Aggregation and splitting in self-driven swarms

We present a model for studying aggregation and splitting in identical self-propelled particle swarms. A long-range attractive and short-range repulsive interaction among particles is assumed for aggregation of the individuals, and an intermediate-range Gaussian-shaped repulsive interaction is employed for swarm splitting. Our results show that the swarms can split into subswarms and reunite again by tuning the strength of the intermediate-range repulsion. Moreover, the subswarms may move coherently or independently depending on the location of the maximum of the Gaussian-shaped interaction. The average spatial size and nearest-neighbor distance of subswarms can be estimated by analyzing the steady-state configuration of particles. The results might have implications for the design of control strategies in motion coordination of multi-agent systems.