robotics
The Swarm Worked. The Audience Saw Something Else.
The same decentralized code ran across tabletop, aerial and human-scale robot swarms, yet embodiment changed timing, motion and human interpretation.
Summary
The same decentralized code ran across tabletop, aerial and human-scale robot swarms, yet embodiment changed timing, motion and human interpretation.
Researchers deployed one coordination algorithm across three swarm platforms during live artistic performances. The underlying software executed reliably, but physical embodiment changed visible timescales by more than a factor of three and reshaped trajectories. Audience surveys added a second gap: perceived purpose and emotional response depended strongly on form, and those two reactions did not move together. The study argues that closing the simulation-to-reality gap is insufficient in human environments; collective motion must also be legible. The findings come from these performance settings, not a universal measure of trust in swarms.
Why it matters
The same decentralized code ran across tabletop, aerial and human-scale robot swarms, yet embodiment changed timing, motion and human interpretation.
Limits and context
- Audience surveys added a second gap: perceived purpose and emotional response depended strongly on form, and those two reactions did not move together.
- The findings come from these performance settings, not a universal measure of trust in swarms.
Key claims
The same decentralized code ran across tabletop, aerial and human-scale robot swarms, yet embodiment changed timing, motion and human interpretation.
Qualification: Audience surveys added a second gap: perceived purpose and emotional response depended strongly on form, and those two reactions did not move together.
Evidence: source-2026-11-04-013
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2611.05244, original v1arXiv · primary research
Corrections
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