Human Robot Interaction in Guardians

There are different forms of human-robot interactions, allowing a team of humans and robots to take advantage of skills of each team member. A relatively new area of research considers interactions between human and a team of robots, called a swarm of robots. This paper discusses possible forms of interactions in swarm robotics within the Guardians project. The paper particularly addresses the use of assistive swarm roboticts to support fire-fighters with navigation and search operations. It reports on existing fire-fighters operations. Furthermore the paper presents the current state of art in human-swarm interactions for such operations. Then direct and remote interactions in the Guardians project are introduced and finally related communication issues are discussed.