Firefighters' Perceptions on Collaboration and Interaction with Autonomous Drones: Results of a Field Trial
Moyi Li, Dzmitry Katsiuba, Mateusz Dolata, Gerhard Schwabe
TL;DR
This study investigates how firefighters perceive and interact with autonomous drones during emergency response. It develops a two-drone system delivering sound, lights, and a tablet interface, and evaluates it in two real-field firefighting exercises with firefighters, victims, and bystanders. Findings show lighting-based communication aids localization and credibility, while audio broadcasts risk information overload and require careful targeting and integration with existing command structures. The work highlights design needs for information prioritization, traceability, and training, and discusses how drone adoption could reshape team roles and decision-making in firefighting. Together, these results advance HDI design for autonomous drones in high-stakes public safety contexts and inform practical deployment considerations.
Abstract
Applications of drones in emergency response, like firefighting, have been promoted in the past decade. As the autonomy of drones continues to improve, the ways in which they are integrated into firefighting teams and their impact on crews are changing. This demands more understanding of how firefighters perceive and interact with autonomous drones. This paper presents a drone-based system for emergency operations with which firefighters can interact through sound, lights, and a graphical user interface. We use interviews with stakeholders collected in two field trials to explore their perceptions of the interaction and collaboration with drones. Our result shows that firefighters perceived visual interaction as adequate. However, for audio instructions and interfaces, information overload emerges as an essential problem. The potential impact of drones on current work configurations may involve shifting the position of humans closer to supervisory decision-makers and changing the training structure and content.