Human–Swarm Interaction Simulation Platform to Assess Sense of Agency

The recent interest in the experience of the operator as an agent (“agency”) and the notable recent research activity in the interaction of this operator with robot swarms, referred as human–swarm interaction systems (HSI), brings new challenges and opens novel perspectives to interpret and counterbalance the difficulties that arise in highly automated systems, mainly in systems that require human–machine cooperation. It is known that the automation can modify the agentive experience and these changes can impact the operator performance and the system suitability. The concept of agency, thus, provides us with new conceptual tools and measures to improve and optimize the design, control and interaction of these systems. We propose in this article the development of a simulation platform to apply the framework of agency to the HSI field. As a proof of concept, the platform is employed to assess how the level of automation influences an operator acknowledgement and management of such system.