Eiris, R; Albeaino, G; Gheisari, M; Benda, W and Faris, R (2021) Indrone: A 2D-based drone flight behavior visualization platform for indoor building inspection. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 10(3), pp. 438-456. ISSN 2046-6099
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to explore how to visually represent human decision-making processes during the performance of indoor building inspection flight operations using drones Data from expert pilots were collected using a virtual reality drone flight simulator. The expert pilot data were studied to inform the development of an interactive 2D representation of drone flight spatial and temporal data – InDrone. Within the InDrone platform, expert pilot data were visually encoded to characterize key pilot behaviors in terms of pilots' approaches to view and difficulties encountered while detecting the inspection markers. The InDrone platform was evaluated using a user-center experimental methodology focusing on two metrics: (1) how novice pilots understood the flight approaches and difficulties contained within InDrone and (2) the perceived usability of the InDrone platform. The results of the study indicated that novice pilots recognized inspection markers and difficult-to-inspect building areas in 63% (STD = 48%) and 75% (STD = 35%) of the time on average, respectively. Overall, the usability of InDrone presented high scores as demonstrated by the novice pilots during the flight pattern recognition tasks with a mean score of 77% (STD = 15%). This research contributes to the definition of visual affordances that support the communication of human decision-making during drone indoor building inspection flight operations. The developed InDrone platform highlights the necessity of defining visual affordances to explore drone flight spatial and temporal data for indoor building inspections.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | unmanned aerial vehicles; indoor building inspection; pattern recognition; flight simulators; unmanned aerial vehicles; automation; decision making; visualization; virtual reality; building information modeling; semantics |
| Index terms: | pattern recognition, drone, indoor building inspection, usability, decision-making, methodology, flight simulator, flight operation, affordance, visualization, building information modelling, platform, semantics, decision-making process, inspection, virtual reality, marker, automation, unmanned aerial vehicle |
| Subjects: | analytical methods, professional practice, modelling and simulation, operations management, virtual reality, user-centered design, quality assurance, behavioral psychology, information systems, decision analysis, digital design, probability and distributions, automation and robotics, computer vision, research methods, design practice |
| Topics: | Risk Management, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Quality Management, Digital Applications, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here