Controlling Flock Through Normalized Radial Basis Function Interpolation

This chapter introduces a controllable real-time flocking simulation framework through a vector field based on normalized radial basis function. During the design process, the framework subdivides the entire simulating environment into small cells, a so-called grid structure, and then assigns a vector per each cell, which represents a 2D vector field. The vectors of the field are automatically calculated by specifying a set of control vectors which are used for interpolating all vectors on the field. The interpolation scheme is based on normalized radial basis function. Once the construction of vector field is done, at the low level, flocks are simulated by following the vector field in the grid structure. Throughout this process, the position of individual agents is updated and collisions between the flock and the static obstacles are avoided by emitting a repulsive vector around the obstacles on the field. Interindividual collisions are also handled through fast lattice-bin method which can minimize the number of comparisons for detecting collisions.