A Platform for Investigating Interactive and Social Robotic Swarms
In the creative industries, understanding the future demands and desires of people allows you to stay one step ahead. We are interested in understanding what affect the presence of robotic devices will have on the day to day activity of people, in a work environment, so that we might understand how technology could be best incorporated into peoples lives. To do this, we have developed a novel, interactive robotic swarm, that is able to sense various features of a working environment and respond accordingly. The system is simple to install, low cost and is easy to operate. Robots in the swarm move faster when people are moving, or perform various light displays when the noise level increases, and even tweet its own state when things are changing rapidly in the office. We believe this is one of the first examples of a deployed, interactive swarm in an
office environment. We will be undertaking longitudinal studies to assess the affects of introducing the swarm and how this has changed perception of technology and affected productivity.
Example Videos
Videos of the interactive swarm in use appear here.
Other Resources
Further information about the platform used: the Pi Swarm robot, can be found on this page: Pi Swarm resources.