Swarm analytics: Designing information markers to characterise swarm systems in shepherding contexts

Contemporary swarm indicators are often used in isolation, focussed on extracting information at the individual or collective levels. Consequently, these are seldom integrated to infer a top-level operating picture of the swarm, its members and its overall collective dynamics. The primary contribution of this paper is to organise a suite of indicators about swarms into an ontologically arranged collection of information markers to characterise the swarm from the perspective of an external observer –, a recognition agent. Our contribution shows the foundations for a new area of research that we title swarm analytics, whose primary concern is with the design and organisation of collections of swarm markers to understand, detect, recognise, track and learn a particular insight about a swarm system. We present our designed framework of information markers that offer a new avenue for swarm research, especially for heterogeneous and cognitive swarms that may require more advanced capabilities to detect agencies and categorise agent influences and responses.