Moderating Operator Influence in Human-Swarm Systems

Chace Ashcraft, Michael A. Goodrich, Jacob W. Crandall

Abstract: In human-swarm systems, human input to a robot swarm can both inhibit desirable swarm behaviors and allow the operator to properly guide the swarm to achieve mission goals. Indeed, the way that control is shared between the human operator and the inherent collective robot behaviors determines in large part the success of the human-swarm system. In this paper, we seek to understand how to design human-swarm systems that effectively moderate human influence over a robot swarm. To do this, we implement a simulated swarm system based on honeybees, and study how interacting with this swarm using various methods of moderating human influence impacts the success of the resulting human-swarm system. Our results demonstrate that moderating human influence is essential to achieving effective human-swarm systems, and highlight the need for future work in determining how to better moderate human influence in human-swarm systems.