Investigating drone motion as pedestrian guidance

Abstract

Flying drones have the potential to act as navigation guides for pedestrians, providing more direct guidance than the use of handheld devices. Rather than equipping a drone with a display or indicators, we explore the potential for the drone's movements to communicate the route to the walker. For example, should the drone maintain a constant distance a few meters in front of the pedestrian, or should it position itself further along the navigation route, acting as a beacon to walk towards? We created a set of flying drone gestures and evaluated them in an online survey (n = 100) and an in-the-wild user test (n = 10) where participants were guided on a walking route by a flying drone. As a result, we propose an initial set of drone gestures for pedestrian navigation and provide further design recommendations.