We model, simulate and control the guiding problem for a herd of evaders under the action of repulsive drivers. This is a part of herding problem, which considers the relationship between shepherd dogs and sheep. The problem is formulated in an optimal control framework, where the drivers (controls) aim to guide the evaders (states) to a desired region. Numerical simulations of such models quickly become unfeasible for a large number of interacting agents, as the number of interactions grows $O(N^2)$ for $N$ agents. For reducing the computational cost to $O(N)$, we use the Random Batch Method (RBM), which provides a computationally feasible approximation of the dynamics. In this approximated dynamics, the corresponding optimal control can be computed efficiently using a classical gradient descent. The resulting control is not optimal for the original system, but for a reduced RBM model. We therefore adopt a Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy to handle the error in the dynamics. This leads to a semi-feedback control strategy, where the control is applied only for a short time interval to the original system, and then compute the optimal control for the next time interval with the state of the (controlled) original dynamics.
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