Simulating Pedestrian Behavior with Potential Fields

The main challenges of realistically simulating the displacement of humanoid pedestrians are twofold: they need to behave realistically and they should accomplish their tasks. Here we present a field potential formalism, based upon boundary value problems, that allows a group of synthetic actors to move negotiating space, avoiding collisions, attaining goals in prescribed sequences while at same time producing very individual paths. The individuality of each pedestrian can be set by changing its inner field parameters. This leads to a broad range of possible behaviors without jeopardizing its task performance. Simulate situations as behavior in corridors, collision avoidance and competition for a goal are presented and discussed.