Come to think about it maybe it would just make the system more complex processing-wise to have to test 5 simple objects (rays) instead of 1 slightly more complex object (a tube).
As far as new behaviors I could probably help. I’m not a programmer really. I’m a medical student and I’ve just been playing around with panda. I can probably help more with the math than the actual programming.
Path Following: I’m not sure how you would want to implement this. I’d probably pass a list of waypoints to the behavior. Then, pass a variable for whether or not to loop the waypoints or finish at the last one. Once the vehicle got within a certain distance that waypoint could be declared “cleared” and the target could move to the next one. This could be fairly easy. Use “seek” and “obstacle avoid” and cycle through waypoints as the targets.
Proper leader following: You’ve got most of this coded already. The separation is the only thing that really needs to be added. Separation would probably involve having a larger collision sphere and looking for collisions then applying a force normal to the collision surface.