Hello everyone and thanks for joining me on my talk about designing Telepresence Drones
to Support Synchronous Mid-air Remote Collaboration. My name is Mehrnaz Sabet and this project
was a collaboration with Dr. Mania Orand and Dr. David McDonald.
Drone technology has continuously been evolving in recent years with exceptional
growth in data collection, supply delivery, and farming. During the pandemic, drone technology
has been used in a range of novel applications such as disinfecting spaces and controlling
borders.
Despite the recent growth in using drone technologies for telepresence, existing telepresence drone
platforms do not support remote collaboration and social interaction between multiple remote
users. In addition, these technologies do not give the remote user the freedom to control
and manage the drone without relying on an onsite drone user.
So we undertook this project to understand how can we design a drone-base telepresence
system to support remote collaboration?
We designed and developed Squadrone, an aerial drone-base telepresence system that supports
synchronous, mid-air collaboration among multiple remote users.
Squadrone is a complex configuration of different technologies consisting of a drone as its
core, a 360-degree camera that is mounted to the drone with a smartphone that connects to Squadrone's server
The interface that connects remote users to the drone and allows them
to collaborate over the shared visual space. And finally, remote users are equipped with
programmed game controllers and VR goggles to explore the view and control the drone.
We mounted a 360-degree camera to the drone to see if an aerial 360-degree view can benefit
remote users in their collaborations while giving them independence in where to look
at when they are connected to the same drone. Remote users can explore the view live-streamed
from the mounted camera to the interface using VR goggles.
Remote users can communicate over the shared visual space using the voice conference call
feature.
They can also collaborate in controlling the drone using their programmed game controllers
that is managed through the user interface.
Squadrone's UI is a web application that consists of 3 main pages: interactive map with drone
locations, flight customization, and connection to the drone.
Here is a video that shows the system in action.
The remote user connects to the drone and places the phone inside the headset to explore
the imagery. This is the user's view of the environment. Meanwhile, he is controlling
the drone using the programmed controller. Other members of the same flight are also
exploring the environment using their independent views while collaborating through a VoIP call.
Current drone pilot passes the control to another member with the controller. The new
member is now in control of the drone.
We evaluated Squadrone through three design iterations with 13 participants
In design iteration 1, our goal was to evaluate the basic functionality of Squadrone and to
study how participants would interact with the shared visual space
Then in design iteration 2 our goal was to understand how participants might experience
telepresence in a type of collaborative exploration task over the shared imagery
Finally, in design iteration 3 our goal was to evaluate mechanisms for flight handoff
and collaboration between remote participants and to see whether this type of active collaboration
would impact member's participation in a kind of search task
Our results suggest that
First, drones have a great potential as a platform for remote collaboration. In addition,
collaboration over a shared aerial 360-degree visual space enhances social presence for
multiple remote users.
Also, Participants developed a shared mental model to be able to point and reference objects
in the environment and give directions to the drone pilot. As a result, the participants
developed a better situational awareness as a group, which could lead to a more effective
search strategy.
Also When users have agency in controlling and navigating the drone, they are more engaged
in performing the task and collaborating with each other as opposed to automated flights.
Finally, The ability to collaborate and communicate with the other members of the team combined
with the 360-degree aerial views were key factors that contributed to the participants'
sense of being there .
So to summarize, our main contributions are...
A drone telepresence platform that supports synchronous, remote collaboration using a
novel shared 360-degree display.
Enabling remote users to pass the control of the drone to other remote users while collaborating
on a task.
And design insights for future drone-based telepresence systems that support remote collaboration.
And finally, reflection on a telepresence design framework and extending it to address
challenges identified through this work.
Thank you for your time!