Towards Natural Human-Drone Interaction
Wednesday 21st July 2021
Abstract: The increasing use of small-size drones is both exciting and frightening. The success and acceptability of these automated devices will depend on how well they will be able to communicate with users and passersby alike. How will people be able to make sense of a drone’s intentions and abilities? How will drones respond to people in complex situations? While the research community has developed many techniques and interfaces to interact with both mobile devices and robots, interaction with drones remain challenging as this technology presents unique features, such as its ability to fly. During this talk, I will discuss how we can leverage techniques at the intersection between technology and design to build novel interaction techniques for human-drone interaction. I will describe several methodologies that proved successful in understanding user’s expectations with drones and that will enable their future integration into human teams. Finally, I will present how these new flying technologies re-invent our understanding of ubiquitous and mobile computing and share my vision for future collocated human-drone interaction.
Bio: Dr. Jessica Cauchard is a lecturer in the department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, where she founded and heads the Magic Lab. Her research is rooted in the fields of Human-Computer and Human-Robot Interaction with a focus on novel interaction techniques and ubiquitous computing. Previously, she was faculty of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya between 2017 and 2019. Before moving to Israel, Dr. Cauchard worked as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University and Cornell Tech. She has a strong interest in autonomous vehicles and intelligent devices and how they change our device ecology. She completed her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Bristol, UK in 2014 and received a Magic Grant for her work on interacting with drones by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation in 2015.