  Systems comprised of self-steering active Brownian particles are studied via
simulations for a minimal cognitive flocking model. The dynamics of the active
Brownian particles is extended by an orientational response with limited
maneuverability to an instantaneous visual input of the positions of neighbors
within a vision cone and a cut-off radius. The system exhibits large-scale
self-organized structures, which depend on selected parameter values, and, in
particular, the presence of excluded-volume interactions. The emergent
structures in two dimensions, such as worms, worm-aggregate coexistence, and
hexagonally close-packed structures, are analysed and phase diagrams are
constructed. The analysis of the particle's mean-square displacement shows
ABP-like dynamics for dilute systems and the worm phase. In the limit of
densely packed structures, the active diffusion coefficient is significantly
smaller and depends on the number of particles in the cluster. Our analysis of
the cluster-growth dynamics shows distinct differences to processes in systems
of short-range attractive colloids in equilibrium. Specifically, the
characteristic time for the growth and decay of clusters of a particular size
is longer than that of isotropically attractive colloids, which we attribute to
the non-reciprocal nature of the directed visual perception. Our simulations
reveal a strong interplay between ABP-characteristic interactions, such as
volume exclusion and rotational diffusion, and cognitive-based interactions and
navigation.
