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Main Authors: Kolluri, Mohini Priya, Waheed, Ammar, Hasnain, Zohaib
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00480
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author Kolluri, Mohini Priya
Waheed, Ammar
Hasnain, Zohaib
author_facet Kolluri, Mohini Priya
Waheed, Ammar
Hasnain, Zohaib
contents Achieving scalable coordination in large robotic swarms is often constrained by reliance on inter-agent communication, which introduces latency, bandwidth limitations, and vulnerability to failure. To address this gap, a decentralized approach for outer-loop control of large multi-agent systems based on the paradigm of how a fluid moves through a volume is proposed and evaluated. A relationship between fundamental fluidic element properties and individual robotic agent states is developed such that the corresponding swarm "flows" through a space, akin to a fluid when forced via a pressure boundary condition. By ascribing fluid-like properties to subsets of agents, the swarm evolves collectively while maintaining desirable structure and coherence without explicit communication of agent states within or outside of the swarm. The approach is evaluated using simulations involving $O(10^3)$ quadcopter agents and compared against Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solutions for a converging-diverging domain. Quantitative agreement between swarm-derived and CFD fields is assessed using Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE), yielding normalized errors of 0.15-0.9 for velocity, 0.61-0.98 for density, 0-0.937 for pressure. These results demonstrate the feasibility of treating large robotic swarms as continuum systems that retain the macroscopic structure derived from first principles, providing a basis for scalable and decentralized control.
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institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FISC: A Fluid-Inspired Framework for Decentralized and Scalable Swarm Control
Kolluri, Mohini Priya
Waheed, Ammar
Hasnain, Zohaib
Robotics
Achieving scalable coordination in large robotic swarms is often constrained by reliance on inter-agent communication, which introduces latency, bandwidth limitations, and vulnerability to failure. To address this gap, a decentralized approach for outer-loop control of large multi-agent systems based on the paradigm of how a fluid moves through a volume is proposed and evaluated. A relationship between fundamental fluidic element properties and individual robotic agent states is developed such that the corresponding swarm "flows" through a space, akin to a fluid when forced via a pressure boundary condition. By ascribing fluid-like properties to subsets of agents, the swarm evolves collectively while maintaining desirable structure and coherence without explicit communication of agent states within or outside of the swarm. The approach is evaluated using simulations involving $O(10^3)$ quadcopter agents and compared against Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solutions for a converging-diverging domain. Quantitative agreement between swarm-derived and CFD fields is assessed using Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE), yielding normalized errors of 0.15-0.9 for velocity, 0.61-0.98 for density, 0-0.937 for pressure. These results demonstrate the feasibility of treating large robotic swarms as continuum systems that retain the macroscopic structure derived from first principles, providing a basis for scalable and decentralized control.
title FISC: A Fluid-Inspired Framework for Decentralized and Scalable Swarm Control
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00480