Birds, fish, and many other animals travel as a flock, school, or herd
. Animals in these groups must remain in close proximity while avoidin
g collisions with neighbors and with obstacles. We would like to repro
duce this behavior for groups of simulated creatures traveling fast en
ough that dynamics plays a significant role in determining their movem
ent. In this paper, we describe an algorithm for controlling the movem
ents of creatures that travel as a group and evaluate the performance
of the algorithm with three simulated systems: legged robots, humanlik
e bicycle riders, and point-mass systems. Both the legged robots and t
he bicyclists are dynamic simulations that must control balance, facin
g direction, and forward speed as well as position within the group. T
he simpler point-mass systems are included because they help us to und
erstand the effects of the dynamics on the performance of the algorith
m.