The ABCD project focused on enabling safe close-body human-drone interactions through two primary objectives : developing a robotic co-working platform and identifying user needs via human-machine interaction techniques.
The first objective involved designing and developing a co-working drone platform, which required extensive technical work on both the drone and its operating environment. An intern, Mr. Dutau, was recruited to familiarize himself with the platform’s complexities, which included various hardware and software components like Gazebo, Simulink, GenoM, and ROS. The process involved programming drone motions in a simulation environment before transitioning them to the physical drone. This phase encountered several challenges, particularly with physical constraints such as cables that affected the drone’s movement and stability. Despite efforts to resolve these issues, discrepancies between simulated and actual drone trajectories persisted, impacting the creation of a safe and repeatable research environment.

The second objective centered on human-drone interaction, employing a user-centered design approach to understand and incorporate the needs of potential users. Through literature reviews and expert discussions, the project identified criteria for acceptable close-to-body interactions and developed realistic use-case scenarios, particularly focusing on handover tasks in construction environments. Due to safety concerns, video prototypes of human-drone interactions were created and used in an online questionnaire to gather user feedback on various trajectories and scenarios. This feedback is intended to guide future iterations of the project.

The project yielded theoretical results, including criteria for human-drone interaction and identified use cases such as tool handover and collaborative tasks. Technologically, it successfully implemented drone motions in simulations and attempted to apply these to the physical platform. Experimentally, the project produced video prototypes and collected preliminary feedback through an online questionnaire, setting the stage for further research and development in human-drone co-working scenarios.