# Mixed-Granularity Human-Swarm Interaction

## TL;DR

This paper introduces an augmented reality interface for human-swarm interaction that combines environment-oriented and robot-oriented modalities, demonstrating improved effectiveness in collective transport tasks through a user study.

## Contribution

It presents a novel AR interface integrating two interaction modalities for human-swarm control and evaluates their combined effectiveness in a user study.

## Key findings

- Environment-oriented interaction is more effective than robot-oriented for untrained users.
- Combining both interaction modalities yields higher efficacy in swarm tasks.
- User study results support the use of mixed-granularity interaction for better control.

## Abstract

We present an augmented reality human-swarm interface that combines two modalities of interaction: environment-oriented and robot-oriented. The environment-oriented modality allows the user to modify the environment (either virtual or physical) to indicate a goal to attain for the robot swarm. The robot-oriented modality makes it possible to select individual robots to reassign them to other tasks to increase performance or remedy failures. Previous research has concluded that environment-oriented interaction might prove more difficult to grasp for untrained users. In this paper, we report a user study which indicates that, at least in collective transport, environment-oriented interaction is more effective than purely robot-oriented interaction, and that the two combined achieve remarkable efficacy.