Social Proxemics of Human-Drone Interaction: Flying Altitude and Size

To what extent do humans comfortably approach to hovering drones? In human-robot interaction, social proxemics is somewhat known. Han & Bae showed that students usually stand as far apart as the height of tele-robot teacher [1]. As commercial drone markets rise, the social proximity in human-drone interaction becomes an important issue. Researches on measuring the social proximity of interacting with drones are still in early stages. Jane showed that Chinese participants approach flying drone closer than American participants [2]. Abtahi experimented with an unsafe and a safe-to-touch drone, to check whether participants instinctively use touch for interacting with the safe-to-touch drones [3]. We aimed the first research on how people respond to the order to approach hovering drones which differs in size and flying altitudes under the conditions that a safety issue was secured enough. Two types of drones: small and big sized ones were prepared. Each drone flew 1.6m of eye level or 2.6m of overhead high. Total 32 participants with an average age of 22.64 were individually to stand 11.5 Feet away from hovering drones in 2x2 conditions: two sizes and two flying altitudes. Only one of participants experienced operating drones. A transparent safety panel was installed between hovering drone and participants. Each participant was technically allowed to move from the standing point 6.5 Feet away from a safety panel. A remote drone operator who controlled a hovering drone made a short conversation with a participant who stood behind a safety panel via a loud speaker system connected to a cellular phone in the experiment spot. After a participant recognized the drone as the extension of a remote operator, the participant was asked to move forward to hear a remote operator better. The experiment results showed that participants approached further when interacting with eye leveled drones compared with overhead drones. Flight altitude matters in social proximity of human-drone interaction with a significant level ?=0.2. Females moved closer to a big and eye-level drone. 31 participants entered into social space to interact with drones, and only one approached less than two Feet to be still in public space from drones. Gender and size of drone did not make significant differences in social proximity of human-drone interaction. This experiment has an evident limit of measuring the proxemics of participants under the cover of an acryl panel, which must have been installed for safety of any experiments of human-drone proximity. Nonetheless, the results imply that most South Korean participants might be ready to comfortably enter social space to interact with drones, and hovering drones in eye-level altitude seem to promote this attitude.