IROS 2024 Half Day Workshop


October 14th, 2024 (Monday 14:00 - 18:00 (GMT+4))

In person: Room 11

Virtual: Join via MS Teams

Human Swarm Teaming

Abstract

Swarm Robotics brings robustness, scalability and adaptability to self-organising systems but its applications are mainly limited to research platforms. Human-swarm interaction facilitates the integration of human supervision into swarm systems, opening up opportunities for real-world applications. However, interfacing, transparency, and trust present significant challenges that need to be addressed. The complexity of this issue requires a joint effort from researchers across different disciplines including human factors, ethics, software engineering, machine learning, hardware design, regulation and policy. This one-day workshop aims to bring together researchers to discuss the potential of relying on human-swarm interaction for real-world applications and present the challenges that could inform future research in this area. Besides the keynote talks from world-leading researchers, the event will foster interaction through focus groups including senior and junior researchers, two-panel discussions and poster sessions. Through these discussions and interactive presentations, we hope to encourage discussion among a diverse set of experts and facilitate future interdisciplinary collaborations that could present research directions with viable industry applications.

We welcome submissions in the following areas:

  • Gesture-based human-swarm interaction
  • Virtual and Augmented Reality in Interaction with Swarms
  • Modelling Human Behaviour in Interaction with Swarms
  • Visualization of Swarm Behaviour
  • Cognitive Load and Complexity in Operating Swarms
  • Verification of Swarm Systems
  • Control and Coordination of Swarms
  • Measuring Performance in Human Swarm Systems
  • Novel Interaction Design in Human Swarm Systems
  • Transparency of Swarms
  • Ethical, Societal, and Privacy Considerations in Designing Swarms
  • Safety and Security of Swarms
  • Machine Learning Applications to Human-Swarm Interaction
  • Applications of Swarms in Critical Environments
  • Real-world Applications of Swarm Systems
  • Mixed-initiative for Human-swarm Interaction
  • Levels of Autonomy in Swarms
  • Swarm State Estimation

Invited Speakers

Prof Katia Sycara
Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Prof Giovanni Beltrame
Polytechnique Montreal, Canada

Prof Heiko Hamann
University of Konstanz, Germany

Prof Eliseo Ferrante
*Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dubai Future Foundation, UAE

Call for Contributions

Submission Guidelines

We invite submissions of previously published or unpublished works as extended abstracts (up to 2 pages) in IEEE conference format. All submissions will undergo a peer-review process by the workshop's program committee and accepted papers will be invited to present their posteres at the workshop. All accepted submissions that have not been previously published will receive an invitation to submit a full paper for consideration in the special issue on Human-swarm Interaction in the Swarm Intelligence Journal.

Best Paper
The best paper will be awarded a mini drone package (i.e., Lighthouse Explorer Bundle) and will be invited to give a presentation during the workshop.

Important Dates
*All deadlines are at 23:59 AoE
  • Submission Deadline: (Round I) August 19th & (Round II) September 19th
  • Notification of Acceptance (Round I) August 26th & (Round II) September 26th
  • Camera-Ready Paper Deadline: October 1st
  • Workshop Date & Time: October 14th (14:00 - 18:00 GMT+4)
Submission Instructions

Please submit your paper electronically via the workshop's EasyChair submission system: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=thus24

Please format your paper using the IEEE conference paper sytle.

Schedule

Time Speaker Details
14:00 Organisers Welcome
14:10 Prof Eliseo Ferrante*,†
*Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Dubai Future Foundation (Dubai Future Labs)
Human-Swarm Interaction through Implicit Leaders
14:30 Prof Katia Sycara
Carnegie Mellon University
Models of Trust in Human Interaction with Swarms
14:50 Prof Giovanni Beltrame
Polytechnique Montreal
Field Operation of Robot Swarms: are we there yet?
15:10 Prof Heiko Hamann
University of Konstanz
Time Perception in Human-swarm Interaction
15:30 Coffee break
16:00 Dr Amro Najjar
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
XAI for Remote Robots and Swarms: Challenges, Perspectives, and Lessons learned from user studies
16:20 Prof Horia Maior
University of Nottingham
Interactive Session: Responsible, Research Innovation (RRI) on different aspects of Human-Swarm partnership (based on https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597512.3599721)
16:40 Poster Session
17:20 Best Poster Awardee(s) Presentation of the Award Winning Poster
17:25 Panel discussion Theme: Trust in Swarms
Panelists:
In-person: Invited Speaker
Online: Prof Luis Sentis (University of Texas at Austin) and Prof Gopal Ramchurn, CEO of Responsible AI UK
Chair: Prof Mohammad Soorati (University of Southampton)
18:00 End of Workshop

Organisers

Mohammad Soorati
University of Southampton

Horia Maior
University of Nottingham

Mohammad Naiseh
Bournemouth University

Aleksandra Landowska
University of Nottingham

Ayodeji Abioye
University of Southampton

William Hunt
University of Southampton

Ayomide Agunloye
University of Southampton

Samratul Fuady
University of Southampton

Sponsors

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