VR environment for the study of collocated interaction between small UAVs and humans

Two issues that are crucial to the integration of flying robotic systems into human populated environments include: how humans perceive autonomous flying robots, and how to design and control flying robots to improve the level of comfort and perceived safety for collocated others. This work represents a comprehensive virtual reality test environment to explore scripted and unscripted interactions with flying robots. We employ a multimethod approach by incorporating behavioral measures, self-report questionnaires, and physiological data to characterize human arousal during a variety of predetermined and real-time scenarios in both indoor and outdoor environments. By combining complementary methodological techniques, we can converge on a data-driven model of social etiquette for flying robots; this model can then be reparametrized in terms of planning and control solutions to govern the robot's behavior in a real-world context.