Effects of Human Connection through Social Drones and Perceived Safety

Abstract

This study investigates whether people perceive social drones differently depending on pilot type and perceived safety. A "drone campus tour guide" social drone service was examined to explore these values. This study involves a between-subjects experiment using two drone control types (human-driven and algorithm-driven) and two levels of perceived safety (low and high). The results demonstrate that the drone pilot type changes the service experience when the drone is flying in an unsafe manner. In the group where the drones were flown in an unsafe manner, participants exhibited higher levels of satisfaction with the algorithm-driven drone guide, while both types of drones received the same level of satisfaction when they were flown safely. The results have implications for understanding how expectations influence service evaluations in relation to human connection.

Perceived Safety in Physical Human Robot Interaction -- A Survey

“…1), and a description of the most relevant works will be provided: due to space limitation, we will only describe the most representative papers of the specific category, selected based on number of citations and publication venue. We will analyze how perceived safety in pHRI has been studied for industrial manipulators , mobile robots [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58], mobile manipulators [59][60][61][62][63][64][65], humanoid robots , drones [100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115], and self-driving cars [116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125]…”

“…Kong et al [112] conducted a study with 60 participants that were given a 4-minute tour by either a human-driven or by an algorithm-driven drone around a university campus. Participants were provided with earphones with an audio guide that had an explicit statement that the drone was either controlled by a human or fully autonomous, but the study was always controlled in a Wizard-of-Oz fashion.…”

“…Further findings suggest that people feel comfortable with drone's speed being 0.5 m/s [115] and 0.7 m/s [113], altitude being 1.2 m [105], lateral distance being 0.6 m [105], with the frontal side as a direction of approach, and with a direct trajectory [115]. For the guiding outdoors scenario, the preferred distance to the robot and height were 4.0 m and 2.6 m respectively [112]. Proxemics with the drones varied based on gender as female and male participants preferred distances were 1.5 m and 1.1 m respectively [105].…”

“…In general, people feel safe around medium-sized drones [100,105] regardless of their level of autonomy [112,115]. Further findings suggest that drones' steady movements and predictable trajectory, production of social gestures, the presence of safe guards, face and feedback lights can increase people's feelings of safety around drones [105,[107][108][109]113].…”

Managing Crowds with Wireless and Mobile Technologies

“…Additionally, we can use them to promptly deliver some material and medical supplies in areas where ground transportation is not feasible [27,28].…”