43 research outputs found
Outlining the design space of eXplainable swarm (xSwarm): experts perspective
In swarm robotics, agents interact through local roles to solve complex tasks
beyond an individual's ability. Even though swarms are capable of carrying out
some operations without the need for human intervention, many safety-critical
applications still call for human operators to control and monitor the swarm.
There are novel challenges to effective Human-Swarm Interaction (HSI) that are
only beginning to be addressed. Explainability is one factor that can
facilitate effective and trustworthy HSI and improve the overall performance of
Human-Swarm team. Explainability was studied across various Human-AI domains,
such as Human-Robot Interaction and Human-Centered ML. However, it is still
ambiguous whether explanations studied in Human-AI literature would be
beneficial in Human-Swarm research and development. Furthermore, the literature
lacks foundational research on the prerequisites for explainability
requirements in swarm robotics, i.e., what kind of questions an explainable
swarm is expected to answer, and what types of explanations a swarm is expected
to generate. By surveying 26 swarm experts, we seek to answer these questions
and identify challenges experts faced to generate explanations in Human-Swarm
environments. Our work contributes insights into defining a new area of
research of eXplainable Swarm (xSwarm) which looks at how explainability can be
implemented and developed in swarm systems. This paper opens the discussion on
xSwarm and paves the way for more research in the field.Comment: In the 16th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic
Systems 2022, November 28-30, 2022, Montbeliard, Franc
Trust Challenges in Reusing Open Source Software: An Interview-based Initial Study
Open source projects play a significant role in software production. Most of
the software projects reuse and build upon the existing open source projects
and libraries. While reusing is a time and cost-saving strategy, some of the
key factors are often neglected that create vulnerability in the software
system. We look beyond the static code analysis and dependency chain tracing to
prevent vulnerabilities at the human factors level. The literature lacks a
comprehensive study of the human factors perspective on the issue of trust in
reusing open source projects. We performed an interview-based initial study
with software developers to get an understanding of the trust issue and
limitations among the practitioners. We outline some of the key trust issues in
this paper and lay out the first steps toward the trustworthy reuse of
software.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of 26th ACM International Systems and
Software Product Line Conference - Volume
Repository for Reusing Artifacts of Artificial Neural Networks
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) replaced conventional software systems in
various domains such as machine translation, natural language processing, and
image processing. So, why do we need an repository for artificial neural
networks? Those systems are developed with labeled data and we have strong
dependencies between the data that is used for training and testing our
network. Another challenge is the data quality as well as reuse-ability. There
we are trying to apply concepts from classic software engineering that is not
limited to the model, while data and code haven't been dealt with mostly in
other projects. The first question that comes to mind might be, why don't we
use GitHub, a well known widely spread tool for reuse, for our issue. And the
reason why is that GitHub, although very good in its class is not developed for
machine learning appliances and focuses more on software reuse. In addition to
that GitHub does not allow to execute the code directly on the platform which
would be very convenient for collaborative work on one project.Comment: tool paper https://github.com/ghofrani85/RAN2 7 page
Industry Led Use-Case Development for Human-Swarm Operations
In the domain of unmanned vehicles, autonomous robotic swarms promise to
deliver increased efficiency and collective autonomy. How these swarms will
operate in the future, and what communication requirements and operational
boundaries will arise are yet to be sufficiently defined. A workshop was
conducted with 11 professional unmanned-vehicle operators and designers with
the objective of identifying use-cases for developing and testing robotic
swarms. Three scenarios were defined by experts and were then compiled to
produce a single use case outlining the scenario, objectives, agents,
communication requirements and stages of operation when collaborating with
highly autonomous swarms. Our compiled use case is intended for researchers,
designers, and manufacturers alike to test and tailor their design pipeline to
accommodate for some of the key issues in human-swarm ininteraction. Examples
of application include informing simulation development, forming the basis of
further design workshops, and identifying trust issues that may arise between
human operators and the swarm.Comment: Accepted at AAAI 2022 Spring Symposium Series (Putting AI in the
Critical Loop: Assured Trust and Autonomy in Human-Machine Teams
Flora robotica -- An Architectural System Combining Living Natural Plants and Distributed Robots
Key to our project flora robotica is the idea of creating a bio-hybrid system
of tightly coupled natural plants and distributed robots to grow architectural
artifacts and spaces. Our motivation with this ground research project is to
lay a principled foundation towards the design and implementation of living
architectural systems that provide functionalities beyond those of orthodox
building practice, such as self-repair, material accumulation and
self-organization. Plants and robots work together to create a living organism
that is inhabited by human beings. User-defined design objectives help to steer
the directional growth of the plants, but also the system's interactions with
its inhabitants determine locations where growth is prohibited or desired
(e.g., partitions, windows, occupiable space). We report our plant species
selection process and aspects of living architecture. A leitmotif of our
project is the rich concept of braiding: braids are produced by robots from
continuous material and serve as both scaffolds and initial architectural
artifacts before plants take over and grow the desired architecture. We use
light and hormones as attraction stimuli and far-red light as repelling
stimulus to influence the plants. Applied sensors range from simple proximity
sensing to detect the presence of plants to sophisticated sensing technology,
such as electrophysiology and measurements of sap flow. We conclude by
discussing our anticipated final demonstrator that integrates key features of
flora robotica, such as the continuous growth process of architectural
artifacts and self-repair of living architecture.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure
The effect of data visualisation quality and task density on human-swarm interaction
Despite the advantages of having robot swarms, human supervision is required for real-world applications. The performance of the human-swarm system depends on several factors including the data availability for the human operators. In this paper, we study the human factors aspect of the human-swarm interaction and investigate how having access to high-quality data can affect the performance of the human-swarm system - the number of tasks completed and the human trust level in operation. We designed an experiment where a human operator is tasked to operate a swarm to identify casualties in an area within a given time period. One group of operators had the option to request high-quality pictures while the other group had to base their decision on the available low-quality images. We performed a user study with 120 participants and recorded their success rate (directly logged via the simulation platform) as well as their workload and trust level (measured through a questionnaire after completing a human-swarm scenario). The findings from our study indicated that the group granted access to high-quality data exhibited an increased workload and placed greater trust in the swarm, thus confirming our initial hypothesis. However, we also found that the number of accurately identified casualties did not significantly vary between the two groups, suggesting that data quality had no impact on the successful completion of task
Hybrid Societies : Challenges and Perspectives in the Design of Collective Behavior in Self-organizing Systems
Hybrid societies are self-organizing, collective systems, which are composed of different components, for example, natural and artificial parts (bio-hybrid) or human beings interacting with and through technical systems (socio-technical). Many different disciplines investigate methods and systems closely related to the design of hybrid societies. A stronger collaboration between these disciplines could allow for re-use of methods and create significant synergies. We identify three main areas of challenges in the design of self-organizing hybrid societies. First, we identify the formalization challenge. There is an urgent need for a generic model that allows a description and comparison of collective hybrid societies. Second, we identify the system design challenge. Starting from the formal specification of the system, we need to develop an integrated design process. Third, we identify the challenge of interdisciplinarity. Current research on self-organizing hybrid societies stretches over many different fields and hence requires the re-use and synthesis of methods at intersections between disciplines. We then conclude by presenting our perspective for future approaches with high potential in this area
Constructing living buildings: a review of relevant technologies for a novel application of biohybrid robotics
Biohybrid robotics takes an engineering approach to the expansion and exploitation of biological behaviours for application to automated tasks. Here, we identify the construction of living buildings and infrastructure as a high-potential application domain for biohybrid robotics, and review technological advances relevant to its future development. Construction, civil infrastructure maintenance and building occupancy in the last decades have comprised a major portion of economic production, energy consumption and carbon emissions. Integrating biological organisms into automated construction tasks and permanent building components therefore has high potential for impact. Live materials can provide several advantages over standard synthetic construction materials, including self-repair of damage, increase rather than degradation of structural performance over time, resilience to corrosive environments, support of biodiversity, and mitigation of urban heat islands. Here, we review relevant technologies, which are currently disparate. They span robotics, self-organizing systems, artificial life, construction automation, structural engineering, architecture, bioengineering, biomaterials, and molecular and cellular biology. In these disciplines, developments relevant to biohybrid construction and living buildings are in the early stages, and typically are not exchanged between disciplines. We, therefore, consider this review useful to the future development of biohybrid engineering for this highly interdisciplinary application.publishe
Industry Led Use-Case Development for Human-Swarm Operations
In the domain of unmanned vehicles, autonomous robotic swarms promise to deliver increased efficiency and collective autonomy. How these swarms will operate in the future, and what communication requirements and operational boundaries will arise are yet to be sufficiently defined. A workshop was conducted with 11 professional unmanned-vehicle operators and designers with the objective of identifying use-cases for developing and testing robotic swarms. Three scenarios were defined by experts and were then compiled to produce a single use case outlining the scenario, objectives, agents, communication requirements and stages of operation when collaborating with highly autonomous swarms. Our compiled use case is intended for researchers, designers, and manufacturers alike to test and tailor their design pipeline to accommodate for some of the key issues in human-swarm ininteraction. Examples of application include informing simulation development, forming the basis of further design workshops, and identifying trust issues that may arise between human operators and the swarm