Tactile Human-Quadrotor Interaction: MetroDrone

Abstract

Aerial robots such as quadrotors enjoy ever-increasing popularity and emerge in everyday applications that require user interaction. At immediate proximity, physical control of the quadrotor by touch may be desired or even necessary. In this paper we present a tactile 3D touch interaction scenario with a quadrotor by introducing virtual buttons whose operation is detected in the accelerometer data of the built-in Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) of the quadrotor. By dispensing with additional sensors, we are able to keep the size of the used quadrotor to a minimum and thus address the problem of users being discouraged from interaction with quadrotors at immediate proximity. As an example for the proposed interaction scenario, we introduce MetroDrone, a quadrotor responding to repeated user taps to virtually defined buttons by flying trajectories according to the beat and operated button. This introduces a minimalist interaction technique that requires no intermediary devices and strengthens human-robot connections through shared musical experience.