Cellular Automata Incorporating Follow-the-Leader Principles to Model Crowd Dynamics

Following the leader is a bio-inspired technique that is intuitively adopted by living organisms when moving together. Trying to emulate physical processes, the proposed here Cellular Automaton (CA) model aims at crowd movement simulation by embedding the follow-the-leader technique as its fundamental driving mechanism. Prominent characteristics of the collective motion of biological organisms are apparent to the simulation process. Macroscopically, the study focuses on the emergence of qualitative attributes of crowd behaviour, such as collective effects, random to coherent motion due to a common purpose and transition to incoordination (arching) due to clogging. Microscopically, all configurations of the CA model are triggered by simple rules applied locally to each of the group members. These CA rules are enhanced with memory capacity to gain back model's reversibility and prevent group members from self-entrapment. The inherent attributes of CA allowed the development of a micro-operating model that presents macro-features. Different simulation scenarios validate the response of the presented model.