Multi-Swarm Interaction Through Augmented Reality for Kilobots

Research with swarm robotics systems can be complicated, time-consuming, and often expensive in terms of space and resources. The situation is even worse for studies involving multiple, possibly heterogeneous robot swarms. Augmented reality can provide an interesting solution to these problems, as demonstrated by the ARK system (Augmented Reality for Kilobots), which enhanced the experimentation possibilities with Kilobots, also relieving researchers from demanding tracking and logging activities. However, ARK is limited in mostly enabling experimentation with a single swarm. In this letter, we introduce M-ARK, a system to support studies on multi-swarm interaction. M-ARK is based on the synchronisation over a network connection of multiple ARK systems, whether real or simulated, serving a twofold purpose: i) to study the interaction of multiple, possibly heterogeneous swarms, and ii) to enable a gradual transition from simulation to reality. Moreover, M-ARK enables the interaction between swarms dislocated across multiple labs worldwide, encouraging scientific collaboration and advancement in multi-swarm interaction studies.