Re: Modeling of Crowd Behavior

[Brian Ruth (CBNED/SMSB) <address@hidden>]

On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Stephen C. Upton wrote:

> As a 1.7 Swarm Lurker (between class 1 and 2 -- closer to 2 - I've finally
> got Linux loaded on a new machine! I've previously had Swarm up and running
> at another job, but, alas it's not part of my job description here --
> yet!), I appreciate the separation of the lists.  As of now, I am more
> interested in modeling aspects than specifics about Swarm code -- that will
> come :P
> 
> My question is: has, or is, anyone attempting to look at modeling crowd (of
> humans) behavior, whether it be with Swarm or without?  This has obvious
> applications for the justice department and the military, for example.
> They would like to disrupt a crowd using non-lethal technologies, but
> certain actions may be more provocative than others. 
> 
> I would appreciate any references any one might have also.
> 
> thanx
> upton
> 
> 
> 
> *** * **** * ***** ********* ** ****** ***** *** ***** ******** *********
> Stephen C. Upton
> TSA-5, MS F602
> Los Alamos National Laboratory
> Los Alamos, NM 87545
> 505-667-9435  FAX 505-665-2017
> address@hidden
> ******* ********* *** ** *** ******** **** ****** ** ****** **** *** ***


I'm currently a Swarm user wannabe (I'm waiting for the source+binary
release for SGIs), but I have looked a bit into modeling crowd behavior.
Dana Eckart of Radford University and I are currently developing a
cellular automata model, using his Cellular simulation system (available
at

        http://rucs2.sunlab.cs.runet.edu/~dana/ca/cellular.html),

which demonstrates the emergence of panic within a unit of soldiers when
exposed to one or more battlefield threats.  The model determines whether
a particular soldier will panic by assigning a probability of panic
conditional on the number of wounded and/or panicking neighbors within the
soldier's extended Moore neighborhood (21 x 21 cells on a 2D lattice),
and then performs a random draw to determine the soldier's panic state
(panicking/not panicking).  Flocking behavior is also considered within
the unit (for non-panicking soldiers only) , where a soldier's speed and
direction of travel is determined by that of his neighbors.  This type of
model could easily be extended to a civilian crowd being fired upon by a
sniper or being broken up by law enforcement officers, where the probability 
of panic associated with a civilian would be somewhat higher than that for
a soldier under similar circumstances, and flocking (or anti-flocking)
might be governed by a hierarchy based on parameters such as uniform
(national guard, policeman), visible weapon (gun, club), and so on.  Also,
check out the examples link on Prof. Eckart's Cellular page (referenced
above), where he presents an implementation of a flocking algorithm
developed by Tamas Vicsek and colleagues at Eotvos University in Budapest.

Hope this helps. 
Brian Ruth


  *===================================================================*
  | Brian G. Ruth                    **  Voice: Comm.  (410)612-8687  |
  | U.S. Army Research Laboratory    **  FAX:   Comm.  (410)671-2375  |
  | ATTN: AMSRL-SL-CM                **                               |
  | Bldg. E3331                      **                               | 
  | Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD      **                               |
  |                  21010-5423      **  email: address@hidden         |
  |===================================================================|
  |                      Army Research Laboratory                     |
  |            Survivability/Lethality Analysis Directorate           |
  |   Chemical-Biological, Nuclear & Environmental Effects Division   |
  |             Survivability Modeling & Simulation Branch            |
  *===================================================================*














                  ==================================
   Swarm-Modelling is for discussion of Simulation and Modelling techniques
   esp. using Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp. [un]subscribing),
   please send a message to <address@hidden> with "help" in the
   body of the message.
                  ==================================