Human-guided Swarms: Impedance Control-inspired Influence in Virtual Reality Environments

Prior works in human-swarm interaction (HSI) have sought to guide swarm behavior towards established objectives, but may be unable to handle specific scenarios that require finer human supervision, variable autonomy, or application to large-scale swarms. In this paper, we present an approach that enables human supervisors to tune the level of swarm control, and guide a large swarm using an assistive control mechanism that does not significantly restrict emergent swarm behaviors. We develop this approach in a virtual reality (VR) environment, using the HTC Vive and Unreal Engine 4 with AirSim plugin. The novel combination of an impedance control-inspired influence mechanism and a VR test bed enables and facilitates the rapid design and test iterations to examine trade-offs between swarming behavior and macroscopic-scale human influence, while circumventing flight duration limitations associated with battery-powered small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) systems. The impedance control-inspired mechanism was tested by a human supervisor to guide a virtual swarm consisting of 16 sUAS agents. Each test involved moving the swarm's center of mass through narrow canyons, which were not feasible for a swarm to traverse autonomously. Results demonstrate that integration of the influence mechanism enabled the successful manipulation of the macro-scale behavior of the swarm towards task completion, while maintaining the innate swarming behavior.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, preprin

An OpenEaagles Framework Extension for Hardware-in-the-Loop Swarm Simulation

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarm applications, algorithms, and control strategies have experienced steady growth and development over the past 15 years. Yet, to this day, most swarm development efforts have gone untested and thus unimplemented. Cost of aircraft systems, government imposed airspace restrictions, and the lack of adequate modeling and simulation tools are some of the major inhibitors to successful swarm implementation. This thesis examines how the OpenEaagles simulation framework can be extended to bridge this gap. This research aims to utilize Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation to provide developers a functional capability to develop and test the behaviors of scalable and modular swarms of autonomous UAVs in simulation with high confidence that these behaviors will prop- agate to real/live ight tests. Demonstrations show the framework enhances and simplifies swarm development through encapsulation, possesses high modularity, pro- vides realistic aircraft modeling, and is capable of simultaneously accommodating four hardware-piloted swarming UAVs during HIL simulation or 64 swarming UAVs during pure simulation

Feature Papers of Drones - Volume I

[EN] The present book is divided into two volumes (Volume I: articles 1–23, and Volume II: articles 24–54) which compile the articles and communications submitted to the Topical Collection ”Feature Papers of Drones” during the years 2020 to 2022 describing novel or new cutting-edge designs, developments, and/or applications of unmanned vehicles (drones). Articles 1–8 are devoted to the developments of drone design, where new concepts and modeling strategies as well as effective designs that improve drone stability and autonomy are introduced. Articles 9–16 focus on the communication aspects of drones as effective strategies for smooth deployment and efficient functioning are required. Therefore, several developments that aim to optimize performance and security are presented. In this regard, one of the most directly related topics is drone swarms, not only in terms of communication but also human-swarm interaction and their applications for science missions, surveillance, and disaster rescue operations. To conclude with the volume I related to drone improvements, articles 17–23 discusses the advancements associated with autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, and enhanced flight plannin

Foundations and applications of human-machine-interaction

Der vorliegende Tagungsband zur 10. Berliner Werkstatt Mensch-Maschine-Systeme gibt einen Einblick in die aktuelle Forschung im Bereich der Mensch-Maschine- Interaktion. Einen besonderen Fokus stellt das Wechselspiel von Grundlagenforschung und anwendungsbezogener Forschung dar, was sich im breiten Themenspektrum widerspiegelt, welches von theoretischen und methodischen Betrachtungen bis hin zu anwendungsnahen Fragestellungen reicht. Dabei finden Inhalte aus allen Phasen des Forschungsprozesses Beachtung, sodass auch im Rahmen der 10. Berliner Werkstatt MMS wieder sowohl neue Untersuchungskonzepte als auch abschließende Befunde diskutiert werden. Zentrale Themengebiete sind u. a. Fahrer-Fahrzeug-Interaktion, Assistenzsysteme, User Experience, Usability, Ubiquitous Computing, Mixed & Virtual Reality, Robotics & Automation, Wahrnehmungsspezifika sowie Psychophysiologie und Beanspruchung in der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion.The proceedings of the 10th Berlin Workshop Human-Machine-Systems provide an insight into the current research in the field of human-machine-interaction. The main focus lies on the interplay between basic and applied research, which is reflected in the wide range of subjects: from theoretical and methodological issues to application oriented considerations. Again all stages of the research process are represented in the contributions of the 10th Berlin Workshop HMS. This means new research concepts as well as final results are subject of this volume. Central topics include driver-vehicleinteraction, assistance systems, user experience, usability, ubiquitous computing, mixed and virtual reality, robotics & automation, perception specifics, as well as psychophysiology and workload in human-machine-interaction

Swarm Control in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Swarm control is an open problem. We are taking steps for systematic flight control of large numbers of UAVs. In this paper, we present our design and implementation of UAV group control in a fully implemented simulated UAV environment. We explore issues of limited user intervention, novel agent personality, and multi-theater load balancing