Fluidic Body: Swarm Robots as a Fluid Extension of the Hand
Fluidic Body: Swarm Robots as a Fluid Extension of the Hand
This paper introduces Fluidic Body, a system enabling human operators to control a swarm of fluid-imitating robots using hand gestures that modulate virtual fluid properties. The swarm transitions between soft, deformable states for navigating obstacles and hard, cohesive states for pushing objects. Evaluation across two simulation experiments and one physical demonstration shows the controller outperforms existing task-specific methods in obstacle avoidance and object transportation, reduces user workload, enhances sense of agency, and successfully transfers from VR to real-world robotic hardware.
The study presents a control system for fluid-imitating swarm robots that adapts collective behavior via virtual fluid properties mapped to hand gestures, validated through simulation and physical demonstration with improved obstacle avoidance, object transport, user workload, and sense of agency.
Source: arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · Read original article ↗
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becomes soft enough to deform and flow around obstacles. Closing the hand turns it into a hard, cohesive body that can push objects. We evaluated the controller's performance and its operability in two simulation experiments and one demonstration with physical robots. First, our controller handled both obstacle avoidance and object transportation better than an existing method that behaves the same way in every task.
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becomes soft enough to deform and flow around obstacles. Closing the hand turns it into a hard, cohesive body that can push objects. We evaluated the controller's performance and its operability in two simulation experiments and one demonstration with physical robots. First, our controller handled both obstacle avoidance and object transportation better than an existing method that behaves the same way in every task.
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becomes soft enough to deform and flow around obstacles. Closing the hand turns it into a hard, cohesive body that can push objects. We evaluated the controller's performance and its operability in two simulation experiments and one demonstration with physical robots. First, our controller handled both obstacle avoidance and object transportation better than an existing method that behaves the same way in every task.
Open source S4
Second, in a VR user study, 17 participants completed the combined avoidance-and-transportation task faster and more reliably than with that method. They also reported a lower workload and a stronger sense of agency. Finally, this experience carried over to physical robots in a real-world demonstration (88 participants). These results suggest that treating a swarm as a fluid, a material people already understand, al
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Fluidic Body: Swarm Robots as a Fluid Extension of the Hand
Open source S1
arXiv:2611.06068v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Swarm robots have attracted growing interest as a physical interface for human--computer interaction, since a swarm can reshape its formation to fit the objects and surroundings it works with. For a human operator, however, adapting the swarm's behavior remains difficult. Most existing methods require the user to specify where the swarm should go, and they offer no in
Open source S2
tuitive way to change the collective's behavior as each task demands. We present Fluidic Body, a system that lets a person operate a swarm of fluid-imitating robots as an extension of the hand. The system places a virtual fluid between the hand and the swarm, and the user adapts the swarm's behavior to each task by changing the fluid's properties through simple hand movements. When the user opens the hand, the swarm
Open source S3
lows a robot swarm to work as a deformable extension of the human body.
Open source S6
Source：arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · arxiv.org