CardKit: A Card-Based Programming Framework for Drones

TL;DR

CardKit introduces a card-based programming framework that simplifies the development of complex drone behaviors, making it accessible to operators without extensive programming expertise.

Contribution

It presents a novel visual programming model for drones, demonstrating its effectiveness through a user study and discussing its design and implementation.

Findings

Users found the framework intuitive and engaging.

A wide range of drone scenarios can be implemented with moderate effort.

The approach reduces the complexity of programming advanced drone behaviors.

Abstract

Drones are being used in many industries for a variety of applications, including inspecting bridges, surveying farm land, and delivering cargo. Automating these kinds of scenarios requires more than following a sequence of GPS waypoints; they require integrating on-device hardware with real-time analysis to provide feedback and control to the drone. Currently, implementing these kinds of advanced scenarios is a complex task, requiring skilled software engineers programming with drone APIs. We envision an alternate model to enable drone operators to orchestrate advanced behaviors using a card-based approach. We describe the design of our card-based programming model, position it relative to other visual programming metaphors, share results from our paper prototype user study, and discuss our learnings from its implementation. Results suggest that a wide range of scenarios can be implemented with moderate mental effort and learning, balanced by intuitiveness and engagement.