Work with Computing Systems 2004. H.M. Khalid, M.G. Helander, A.W. Yeo (Editors) .

Kuala Lumpur: Damai Sciences. 849

Collision Free Multi Agents (Crowd) Motion Planning in

Complex Virtual System

Muhammad Shafie Abdul Latiff a, and Setyawan Widyarto b

a
Faculty of Computer Science and Information System, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia.
b
Politeknik Negeri Lampung, Jl. Soekarno Hatta, Lampung, Indonesia.

Abstract. This paper covers the definition of Virtual Environments (VEs) and the issues of Collective
Behavior in complex virtual environment. We present a systems architecture to deal with a complex
VEs. The architecture of crowd system allows behavior of the group and coordination among them to
avoid collision. One result of this study is maximum dispersion or total dispersion. The dispersion
ensures that the path taken for every agent from the same start and the destination location is distinct
from one another. We use SNA* (Synchronous Near-Admissible A*) algorithm to generate the paths
that are no longer tend toward admissibility.

Keywords. Group behavior, Multi agents, Synthetic construction, Complex virtual system.

1. Introduction of virtual reality as the generation by computer software of an

Complex virtual environment may be defined as a huge
representation of real world. It may consist of three main
components i.e. space, crowd and movement. Space comprises
a number of cities, alternative roads, tunnels and multi-layer
planar. Moreover, crowd is an animated character in the form
of batches or represents a group of people that move around in
virtual environment. Furthermore movement is the ability for
the crowd to move in 3 dimensional mod, i.e. the animated
characters is not only to move forward and backward, but be
able to move up and down.
In many cases in real world, this complex environment
is not well thought-out at the stage of designing and
restructuring. This will results with the congestion, traffic and
even casualties. For examples, people going out from a
football stadium at the end of the match, people rushing out
from a railway or LRT (Light Rail Transit) station at the time
of peak hour and the performance of ritual Hajj (one of the
Muslim’s sacred activity). Virtual environment is one of the
possible solutions in term of simulating the environment and
proposing a better solution at the phase of designing and
planning of town, building and path.
Motion planning on the other hand involves some
planning or scheduling activities. We are concentrating
activities as a movement of crowd to achieve same objective.
For example “moving out” is an objective for peoples to
collectively move, “reaching a certain and several destination”
is an objective for the Muslim in order to complete their Hajj
duties. This paper refers motion planning as a condition of
breaking a crowd into several groups (up to three group at this
stage), looking the alternative path, scheduling the movement
at the appropriate time and controlling traffic flow at the
limited number of path.
There are some accepted definitions of virtual reality.
The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus (1993) gives meanings
image or environment that appears real to the senses. Virtual
reality is also known by various terms: virtual environments
(Barfield, 1995), artificial reality (Foley, 1987; Krueger,
1991), spatial immersion (Kalawsky, 1998), etc. It would
seem that each researcher on the subject identifies with a
particular term, or even proposes a new term, that will best
describe or represent their own views of virtual reality.
Therefore, it is clearly confirmed that there is always a
difference between physical, virtual environment and virtual
reality.
This paper may simply define VEs as a representation
of actual world in three dimensional graphical world. We are
rather to use Virtual Environment instead of Virtual Reality.
The property of sensory-immersing is not yet applied.
However, the object in VEs can be positioned, oriented and
scaled using direct and indirect manipulation techniques.
This paper is organized in such a way that after the
description of problem overview in the following section, we
will introduce the overall system architecture for the solution
of the problem. The literature reviews is included in every
section while describing on every parts of the system
architecture. Finally we conclude the paper.
2. Problem Overview
In this paper we present the on-going research results
concerning development of the crowd simulation for complex
virtual environments. The simulation is aimed to reproduce
realistic scenarios involving large number of the virtual human
agents. This large number of agents is purposely to break into
a smaller group and this small group will coordinate among
them self as well as among the other group. Coordination will
involve motion planning specifically scheduling the
movement and controlling traffic flow. This paper will
propose system architecture of the overall problem and apply
Work with Computing Systems 2004. H.M. Khalid, M.G. Helander, A.W. Yeo (Editors) . Kuala Lumpur: Damai Sciences.
Ritual Hajj and Umrah as a case study.
3. The proposal of System Architecture
We base our solution by proposing the complete system
architecture. Figure 1 shows the overall solution for Motion
Planning of Multi-Agents or Crowd in a Complex Virtual
Environment.
Figure 1. An overall system architecture
for motion planning of multi-agents or crowd in a complex
virtual environment.
In the first part, the crowd from the large is splashed
into a several smaller groups. In the second part, the virtual
environment with several paths to a several destinations is
constructed. In the third part, schedule and control the
movement of the crowd are applied.
4. Hierarchical Crowd Decomposition
4.1. Path planning and co-ordination of multi agents
Path planning may be defined as a path taken by animated
character or robot (in the field of robotics) from source to
destination that was derived from certain calculations or more
specifically an algorithm. The computational complexity of
some basic formulations of the path planning problem has
850
been studied in detail. Path planning, motion planning, path
finding and shortest path are typical terms related to the
research area in the field of computer animation (especially in
computer games), computer networks and robotics. In the field
of computer animation or virtual reality, path planning is one
of the important aspects of the interaction between an
autonomous agent and its environment.
Kallmann et al. (2003) collect new techniques based on
probabilistic motion planning for controlling human-like
articulated characters. The techniques have succeeded to
synthesize valid, collision-free grasping motions while taking
into account several human-related issues. The techniques
mainly concentrate on the reaching phase problem, i.e., how to
compute a valid collision-free motion between two postures.
The method operates on 22 DOFs of an abstract control layer,
mapped to the actual DOFs of the over 70characters. Yet the
techniques presented therein has not arrived at multi agents
motion planning in complex virtual system rather trajectory
planning in complex environment.
In our project, path planning for multi agent is a model
of a crowd in complex environment. It is assumed that a
crowd is similar with a vector field. A crowd is a group of
agents that consists of more than two agents. Complex refers
to more than two crowds. In general, a moving agent is
represented by a vector. The configuration of a vector field on
an open set in Rn is classically defined as a function:
X:O ⎯
⎯→ Rn
In component form, the function X is given by:
X (x) = (X1(x), … , Xn(x))
The proposed scenario of collision free multi agents
motion planning starts by first breaking a given crowd into
smaller groups, as illustrated in Figure 2. The crowd is
represented by water. The water may be flowing and/or facing
an obstruction. On the contrary the water may be stable and
disrupted by an invader. Both cases cause the water splashed
giving an ideas of crowd dispersion.
Figure 2. The ideas of hierarchical crowd decomposition
However, the splash water will go disorderly and
unpredictable. The research is aimed to synchronize a looked
like splash water condition in term of flow rate, direction and
interval time. This method would be termed as hierarchical
crowd decomposition.
The splashing of the multi-agents (crowd) uses an
extension of the A* algorithm. Whereas, collective behavior
based on the co-ordination of multi-agent is included in the
path planning process. The behavior is related to the
movement co-ordination between two or more synthetic actors
or agents in a Virtual Environment.
Work with Computing Systems 2004. H.M. Khalid, M.G. Helander, A.W. Yeo (Editors) . Kuala Lumpur: Damai Sciences.
The first coordination of the collective behavior control
is dispersion amongst the smaller groups that have been
splashed. Their each path is not allowed to collide each other.
To get them, we use maximum dispersion behavior. The
maximum or total dispersion in path planning ensures that the
path taken for every agent from the same start and the
destination location is distinct from one another. However, we
want to specifically address multi-agent communication and
co-ordination through the use of near-admissible search
algorithms in path planning.
The basic idea behind co-ordinated path planning is to
use a variant of A*ε for each agent taking part in the process.
The various A* algorithms will be synchronized according to a
measure of collective behavior, for instance maximum
dispersion of the artificial actors. In other words, each agent
uses its own A*ε for path planning but the secondary heuristic
used to select the best candidate node in FOCAL is based on a
measure of the global behavior of the group of agents. For
instance, in our experiments we used as a global criterion the
maximum dispersion of agents in the environment.
Motivation from the result of maximum dispersion for
three agents (Abd.Latiff and Cavazza, 2000), we are going to
use Synchronous Near-Admissible A* or SNA* as motion
planning algorithm. However, the number of alternative paths
does not have to match the number of agents. Splitting a large
group of agents into three smaller groups taking different
routes can be sufficient for many applications. This dispersion
behavior is incorporated into a path planning algorithm using
secondary heuristic (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Path planning with SNA*
The second proposed coordination of the collective
behavior control is planning the flow rate, path capacity and
scheduling to avoid dead lock or collision. The coordination is
simple for single lane and agent following motion but it will
be complicated when attraction and repulsion are involved.
Therefore, some assumptions are needed.
Agent following theories are based on the assumption
that the motion of agent I+1 is governed exclusively by the
motion of the preceding agent i. To avoid collision, the
motions of all agents have an equal velocity. Illustration of
equal velocity motion can be seen in Figure 4. A pilgrim must
851
be following the predecessor pilgrim otherwise they will
collide. The collision may be avoided by changing direction.
Therefore, without changing direction Equation 2 must apply
on some time scale τ,
dvi (t ) vi +1 (t ) − vi (t )
= Equation 1
dt τ
The development of more natural motion will be described in
Section 4.2.
Figure 4. Agent following motion
Musse et al. (1998) have described a model for the
creation of a behavior is based on inter-groups relationships
and collision detection analysis.
4.2. Modeling approach of group behavior
Behavior in groups of a system may be described at three
levels: the individual agent, relationships among individual
agents and collective structure of a group. Each level has its
own complexity and emergent phenomena. Collective
behaviors have been studied and modeled with very different
purposes. Besides single work concerned with generic crowd
simulation (Musse, 2000), most approaches were application
specific, focusing on different aspects of the crowd behavior.
The behavior in groups of a system can be controlled by
two different ways: The first one is known as an autonomous
control where the user determine the interest goals and actions
in function of the simulation environment to generate path or
motion planning and the agents will behave accordingly to this
definitions, avoiding collision with the other agents and
obstacles. The second controlling way represents a group of
agents which can be scheduled and directed by a user, an
operator, an avatar and etc.
Musse (1997, 1998) have developed the Virtual Crowd
model to simulate crowds with different types of control:
programmed (pre-defined behaviors using a script language),
autonomous (rule-based behaviors) and guided (interactive
control) depending on the goal of the simulation.
Work with Computing Systems 2004. H.M. Khalid, M.G. Helander, A.W. Yeo (Editors) . Kuala Lumpur: Damai Sciences.
Schweiss (1999) combined the control of human agents
performing “intelligent actions” (guided by a Rule-Based
Behavior System – RBBS) with the management of
autonomous crowds which perform pre-programmed actions.
In the guided control, the Crowd client handles the
information about IP (interest points) and AP (action points)
that can be specified during the simulation
Crowd simulation for interactive virtual environments
with application as a training system for urban emergency
situations (Ulicny, 2001) define architecture of multi-agent
system allowing both scripted and autonomous behaviors of
the agents as well as their interactions with the virtual
environment and immersed users.
The background motivation for our model is the fact
that in group structure, a different person can behave (in VEs
term: an agent can act) in different ways causing complicated
crowd behavior. For instance, a person who probably suddenly
stops walking will interfere the crowd dynamics as a whole.
Furthermore, the incident may threat the comfort and safety of
the agent itself or the whole group. Situations like those
motivated our work, in order to propose a scenario where a
determined agent reacts only as individual leader in a group.
The initial contribution of our work is to allow the
model to deal with different agent behaviors emerged as a
function of the leading agent. The other main aspect in this
model is the possibility of grouping people. In this case,
agents are able to form groups which cause them to merge or
dispatch amongst existing groups as a function of the safety or
comfort.
The traditional approach to predicting the crowd motion
models the crowd as if it were a continuous homogeneous
mass that behaves like a fluid flowing along a pipe. The
traditional approach assumes that the crowd is made up of
identical agents. In fact, the diverse behavior of an agent as a
part of a group can drastically change the way in which the
crowd as a whole behaves. Helbing (1996; 2000) was able to
model the collective phenomenon of escape panic in the frame
of possessing self-reaction. The model assumes a mixture of
socio-psychological and physical forces influencing the
behavior in, say a crowd in matrices I, with Ni agents where
each agent of i has mass mi, with vector certain desired speed
v i0 and direction e i0 and therefore tends to correspondingly
adapt its velocity v i , within a certain characteristic time τi . At
the same time, it tries to keep a velocity-dependent distance
from other agent j and FOCAL (walls) W in order to avoid
neither collision nor deadlock. This effort of collision free
motion can be modeled by ‘interaction force’ fij and fiW ,
respectively. Derivation of velocity in time t results the
acceleration equation
dvi v 0 ( t ) e 0i ( t ) - v i ( t )
mi
dt
= mi i
ti
+ ∑f ij
j( ≠ i)
Meanwhile, the velocity is resulted from the
derivation of position ri (t ) in time t, v i (t ) = . In order
dt
to get a collision free motion, an agent i decides at time t i
852
(i.e. before deadlock) to avoid another agent j (i.e. to keep a
certain distance). However the agent j has both an attractive
effect and repulsive effects which can be described by
r a uurr
quantities f ij , fij respectively. They are a measure for
direction and strength of psychic motivation of i to approach
or avoid j and they are not forces yet. The simulation of
Helbing Model as shown in Figure 5.
In our previous model, a FOCAL is used for term for a
set of nodes as discussed in section 3.1 above. Regarding to
extend our model, FOCAL will be a counterpart of wall.
Figure 5. An image of Helbing´s simulation model.
5. Synthetic Construction (SC) Method – A Case Study of
Modeling the Ritual Hajj and Umrah
Virtual Reality and its application in industry must be easy to
use, have intuitive interactions, and present information in
high quality assessment of the application. Applications
include crowd simulation for interactive virtual environments
with application as a training system for urban emergency
situations (Ulicny, 2001), animation used in entertainment
industry (Bashforth 2001), crowd behavior models used in
training of military personnel (Varner, 1998) or policemen
(Patten, 1999), crowd motion simulations to support
architectural design both for everyday use (Bouvier, 1996).
The VR applications involve some type of collaboration. This
collaboration would take the form of shared design spaces
such as virtual reality training system for urban emergency
situations. Two of the key problems in the development of
shared virtual environments are real-time and concurrency
control. Therefore, Methods in Synthetic Construction by the
process of constructing intelligent virtual environments will be
also included in the next research.
Methods in Synthetic Construction (SC) proposes the
process of both immersive and realtime constructing
intelligent virtual environments. The proposed SC method of
the virtual environment passes through several main phases.
The first phase is tracking and mapping and it may be a
Equation 2
+ ∑f iW
digitized surface of satellite images or a synthetic
W construction, Figure 6. Position tracking and mapping of the
human movement and environments is a basic requirement
that permeates virtual environment (VE) systems.
dv
Work with Computing Systems 2004. H.M. Khalid, M.G. Helander, A.W. Yeo (Editors) . Kuala Lumpur: Damai Sciences.
Figure 6. A satellite image [Courtesy: medineli@yahoo.com]
The second phase is the modeling of the environment
(see Figure 7). To model the environment, a collection of
scene descriptions (if possible from a different transcription
angle) is needed. The model would be simplified from images
of the real world or creation using CAD models. This phase
has not a Virtualized Reality yet (Kanade, 1997). However,
constructing fine details and preserving the visible detail of the
real-world images may be needed in relation with generating
specific nodes.
The third phase is that rendering the simplified point.
The main difficulty of rendering from the satellite images is
the single view of a scene. For producing better simulation
geometric detail on basic models, multiple views of a scene
(view-dependent texture mapping) are needed (Debevec,
1996).
The last phase is real time interactive presentation. To
results simulation in a short computation time is one of
features desired model. One of the ultimate goals of this
project is realistic simulation of virtual environments and real
time representation of reality. The simulation will benefit
Real-Time Crowd Surveillance in Hajj and Umrah.
In the practice of the crowd motion simulations to
support architectural design, the method in SC is used to help
constructing physical architecture through virtual world. A
real building is regarded as a physical construction, which has
spatial volume. A virtual building however only appears to be
real through the visual sense only. The virtual architecture is
used to support images related to information to be applied in
physical building. Therefore, human computer interface (HCI)
is consciously enriched by notions of size, lighting, color,
animation, allegory and particularity of imagined characters.
This HCI shows the knowledge to understand the supportive
role of spatial structure, color, light and animation for
853
memory. The same things can be also applied in virtual
prototyping.
Figure 7. The modelling of the environment [Courtesy:
FrmEmail@www.me2uweb.com]
6. Conclusion
This paper has come out with an overall system architecture
for motion planning of multi-agents or crowd in a complex
virtual environment. There are three parts of architecture
involve in this problem solution. The first part is how to
manage the crowd from the large into a several smaller
groups. The second part is how to construct the virtual
environment with several paths to a several destinations.
Finally, the third part is how to plan, schedule and control the
movement of the crowd. We are proposing the overall system
architecture as shown in Figure 1 section 3.
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