Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Hiroaki Kawashima’s research lies at the intersection of haptics, multi-robot systems, and human-swarm interaction, where he pioneers methods for a single operator to intuitively control and feel the state of an entire robot team. His most influential work, “Haptic Interactions With Multi-Robot Swarms Using Manipulability” (31 citations), introduces a novel framework for mapping a swarm’s configuration into forces a human can perceive, solving the fundamental challenge of non-unique mappings in human-swarm systems. Kawashima further advanced this field by defining team-level properties for haptic feedback, enabling operators to leverage collective swarm behaviors for task completion. He also developed foundational concepts in multi-agent network theory, including approximate manipulability in leader-follower networks and unified measures of responsiveness and stiffness in formations. His notion of “readiness” provides a metric for how well a formation is preconditioned to respond to external inputs. Through these contributions, Kawashima has established a systematic approach to designing haptic interfaces that make large, distributed robot teams more transparent and controllable, bridging the gap between human intent and swarm dynamics.