MODELS AND METRICS OF GEOMETRIC COOPERATION

A basic way that entities can cooperate with one another is by sharing of tasks through synchronized movement to balance their geometric load. For example, players of a team defending a goal may be as-signed equal-spaced zones to defend or units in a military force may be assigned equal-spaced sectors to control. As the dynamics of the situation unfold and as entities move, withdraw, or enter the space; the other entities cooperate by adjusting their positions to retain load balance. Various ways that this geome-tric cooperation can be accomplished, both from the perspectives of central and local control, are devel-oped, analyzed, and simulated. This problem is related to other geometric cooperation problems such as movements in multi-player pursuit-evasion games and balancing loads for other generally non-geometric algorithms. The authors use the metrics to establish a framework for a theory of geometric cooperation. Simulations, metrics, and results of the algorithms ’ performance in various scenarios are presented.