Fly a Drone Safely: Evaluation of an Embodied Egocentric Drone Controller Interface

Abstract

As the activity of flying drones becomes increasingly widespread, drone accidents are also increasing. Many of these accidents are related to operational issues and, therefore, it is urgent to improve drone controls. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of a drone controller interface supporting an external pilot's egocentric perspective. The interface tried to solve the problem of misaligned perspectives that arise from controllers constructed from a drone-centric or allocentric perspective. To achieve this, two experiments were performed to identify the differences in control performance depending on embodied mental rotation. The results of the experiments revealed that the controller designed from the pilot's egocentric point of view had a stronger performance regardless of the direction of drone flight. Based on the results, implications are discussed.