Transparency: Transitioning From Human–Machine Systems to Human-Swarm Systems

Swarm robotic systems are gaining in interest with the prospect of their use for various applications, including monitoring, tracking, infrastructure support, and protection. Prior human-swarm system research investigated transparency for these systems, but assumed perfect communication scenarios. Real-world human-swarm systems will not have perfect communication due to human processing limitations caused by a large number of individual entities, emergent behavior due to varying environments, and bandwidth issues. Factors that affect transparency or are influenced by transparency were identified from various human–machine system domains; however, understanding the relationship between factors can help designers identify what criteria can be implemented to achieve transparency for swarms. Challenges that may arise based on transparency criteria from human–machine systems are examined to identify improvements for spatial swarm systems.