The effect of leaders on the consistency of group behaviour

• DOI: 10.1504/ijsnet.2012.045962
• Publication Date: 2012-03-24T13:32:44Z
• Authors: Jianying Zheng; Yan Huang; Yang Xiao
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences

This paper addresses the effects of leaders on the consistency of group behaviour. First, a mathematical model is established so that the group attempts to reach a common velocity direction. The action range of leaders is formulated by their communication range. The followers update their states according to the states of both the other followers in the vicinity and the leaders which can communicate with the current follower. After establishing a system model, we then conduct simulations to discover the effects of leaders on the consistency of a group behaviour. Finally, we obtain the following results: (a) the leader is very useful in compelling the group to be consistent, even when the impact factor of the leader is very small; (b) the total consistency of the group is determined not only by the communication range of the leader, but also by the communication range of the followers.