Dimitrios Sainidis, Dimitrios Tsiakmakis, Konstantinos Konstantoudakis, Georgios Albanis, Anastasios Dimou, & Petros Daras. (2021). Single-Handed Gesture UAV Control and Video Feed AR Visualization for First Responders. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 835–848). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming increasingly widespread in recent years, with numerous applications spanning multiple sectors. UAVs can be of particular benefit to first responders, assisting in both hazard detection and search-and-rescue operations, increasing their situational awareness without endangering human personnel; However, conventional UAV control requires both hands on a remote controller and many hours of training to control efficiently. Additionally, viewing the UAV video-feed on conventional devices (e.g. smartphones) require first responders to glance downwards to look at the screen, increasing the risk of accident. To this end, this work presents a unified system, incorporating single-hand gesture control for UAVs and an augmented reality (AR) visualization of their video feed, while also allowing for backup remote UAV control from any device and multiple-recipient video streaming. A modular architecture allows the upgrade or replacement of individual modules without affecting the whole. The presented system has been tested in the lab, and in field trials by first responders.
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Konstantinos Konstantoudakis, Georgios Albanis, Emmanouil Christakis, Nikolaos Zioulis, Anastasios Dimou, Dimitrios Zarpalas, et al. (2020). Single-Handed Gesture UAV Control for First Responders – A Usability and Performance User Study. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 937–951). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increased in popularity in recent years and are now involved in many activities, professional and otherwise. First responders, those teams and individuals who are the first to respond in crisis situations, have been using UAVs to assist them in locating victims and identifying hazards without endangering human personnel needlessly. However, professional UAV controllers tend to be heavy and cumbersome, requiring both hands to operate. First responders, on the other hand, often need to carry other important equipment and need to keep their hands free during a mission. This work considers enabling first responders to control UAVs with single-handed gestures, freeing their other hand and reducing their encumbrance. Two sets of gesture UAV controls are presented and implemented in a simulated environment, and a two-part user study is conducted: the first part assesses the comfort of each gesture and their intuitive association with basic flight control concepts; and the second evaluates two different modes of gesture control in a population of users including both genders, and first responders as well as members of the general populace. The results, consisting of both objective and subjective measurements, are discussed, hindrances and problems are identified, and directions of future work and research are mapped out.
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