User-Designed Human-UAV Interaction in a Social Indoor Environment

The purpose of this project is to understand how people would expect to interact with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in a social indoor environment under friendly, neutral, or adversarial contexts. The three environments will include one setting with the UAV serving as a tour guide, one as a security guard, and one as a food delivery mechanism. This work is novel in its inquiry into the affective nature of the interaction, comparison across situational contexts, and ability to compare preferences both within and between participants. Our findings will help researchers plan for appropriate safety and comfort measures, while being cognizant of the participants’ preferences for and understanding of how drones operate. This study examines realistic indoor scenarios for which each participant designs their preferred interaction and presents exploratory results, including comparison to prior work with respect to motion gestures and comfortable approach distances. Initial findings suggest the importance of visibility of approaches, selecting approach heights relative to the person and based on the context of interaction, and criticality of the initial direction of motion when classifying the communicative content of UAV flight paths.