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arXiv · 2611.03548

Mediating Human-Swarm Interactions Through a Robot Helper: A Shepherding-Inspired Approach

Arihant Yadav·Sophie Jörg·Eakta Jain
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Abstract

This work investigates human-swarm interaction (HSI) for steering large collectives through an intermediary robot helper. While prior robot-swarm control and HSI techniques commonly assume swarm members are addressable, these assumptions often fail for ``ungovernable'' swarms such as wildlife flocks and schools of fish. Motivated by pastoral shepherding, we compare low-level teleoperation to a higher-autonomy motion-primitives interface in a virtual reality (VR) shepherding task under varied swarm cohesion dynamics. Results indicate that motion primitives that operate on collective shape (e.g., boundary-based control) improve task performance and reduce perceived workload.

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Arihant Yadav, Sophie Jörg, Eakta Jain. 2026-11-02. Mediating Human-Swarm Interactions Through a Robot Helper: A Shepherding-Inspired Approach. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03548

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