Direction election in flocking swarms

Swarm gathering and swarm flocking may conflict each other. Without explicit communication, such conflicts may lead to undesired topological changes since there is no global signal that facilitates coordinated and safe switching from one behavior to the other. Moreover, without coordination signals multiple swarm members might simultaneously assume leadership, and their conflicting leading direction is likely to nullify a successful flocking effort. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first set of swarm flocking algorithms that maintain connectivity while electing direction for flocking. The algorithms allow spontaneous direction requests and support direction changes.