SafeSpect: Safety-First Augmented Reality Heads-up Display for Drone Inspections

2025-04-23

AI Summary

Conventional tablet-based interfaces impose high cognitive load and impair situational awareness for drone pilots during inspection tasks. Method: This paper proposes a safety-prioritized head-mounted augmented reality (AR) heads-up display system tailored for inspection missions. Its core innovation is a novel adaptive dual-mode AR visualization mechanism that dynamically switches between “task view” and “safety view” based on operational phase, enabling intelligent information layering; additionally, it introduces a safety-centered interaction paradigm co-designed via participatory design methods. Contribution/Results: Human factors evaluation and real-world user studies demonstrate that, compared to tablet-based and static AR baselines, the system significantly reduces subjective cognitive load (p < 0.01), enhances safety-critical information acquisition efficiency and situational awareness, without compromising inspection task performance or completion quality.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Fairness-aware retrieval and ranking

Abstract

Current tablet-based interfaces for drone operations often impose a heavy cognitive load on pilots and reduce situational awareness by dividing attention between the video feed and the real world. To address these challenges, we designed a heads-up augmented reality (AR) interface that overlays in-situ information to support drone pilots in safety-critical tasks. Through participatory design workshops with professional pilots, we identified key features and developed an adaptive AR interface that dynamically switches between task and safety views to prevent information overload. We evaluated our prototype by creating a realistic building inspection task and comparing three interfaces: a 2D tablet, a static AR, and our adaptive AR design. A user study with 15 participants showed that the AR interface improved access to safety information, while the adaptive AR interface reduced cognitive load and enhanced situational awareness without compromising task performance. We offer design insights for developing safety-first heads-up AR interfaces.

Problem

• Reduces cognitive load on drone pilots
• Enhances situational awareness during inspections
• Prevents information overload with adaptive AR

Innovation

• Heads-up AR interface overlays in-situ information
• Adaptive AR dynamically switches task and safety views
• AR enhances situational awareness and reduces cognitive load