Multi-human multi-robot interaction: cooperation leveraging a robot swarm as a shared resource

This paper investigates the ability of multiple operators to dynamically share the control of robot swarms and the effects of different communication types on performance and human factors. A total of 52 participants completed an experiment in which they were randomly paired to work together in guiding the swarm to complete spatially distributed tasks. Results show that although the ability to share robots did not necessarily increase task scores, it allowed the operators to switch between working independently and collaboratively, reduced the total energy consumed by the swarm, and was considered useful by the participants. We validate the sharing of robots among two operators using physical robots, demonstrating its applicability in the real world.