An Augmented Reality Interaction Interface for Autonomous Drone

TL;DR

This paper presents an augmented reality interface that enhances human interaction with autonomous drones by visualizing 3D maps and enabling spatial target setting through intuitive gestures, improving navigation in unknown environments.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel AR interface for drone interaction that combines 3D map visualization with gesture-based spatial targeting, facilitating more intuitive control.

Findings

Effective visualization of 3D maps on physical surfaces

Intuitive head gaze and hand gestures for target setting

Positive user study results on interaction performance

Abstract

Human drone interaction in autonomous navigation incorporates spatial interaction tasks, including reconstructed 3D map from the drone and human desired target position. Augmented Reality (AR) devices can be powerful interactive tools for handling these spatial interactions. In this work, we build an AR interface that displays the reconstructed 3D map from the drone on physical surfaces in front of the operator. Spatial target positions can be further set on the 3D map by intuitive head gaze and hand gesture. The AR interface is deployed to interact with an autonomous drone to explore an unknown environment. A user study is further conducted to evaluate the overall interaction performance.