Gaze, steering, and active vision during skilled quadcopter flight
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Authors
Powell, Nathaniel V.
Issue Date
2022-08
Type
Electronic thesis
Thesis
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Cognitive science
Alternative Title
Abstract
Previous accounts of how humans locomote have focused on movements and perceptualjudgments along the 2D ground plane, such as when driving automobiles or walking over various
types of terrain. Humans, however, can also locomote in very different conditions as evidenced by
the flight of experienced quadcopter pilots as they fly through cluttered three-dimensional
environments. In this thesis, I investigated how quadcopter pilots coordinate gaze with steering in
a variety of environmental conditions. Chapter 1 reviews previous accounts of visually guided
locomotion in humans and discusses whether such accounts may be able to explain the gaze and
steering behavior of quadcopter pilots. The second chapter outlines a novel experimental paradigm
designed to investigate how quadcopter pilots coordinate gaze with steering in a virtual reality
(VR) environment. Chapters 3 and 4 detail the results from two experiments. There are three main
takeaways from the present set of experiments. First, coordination of gaze and steering during
quadcopter flight share some similarities with gaze during other forms of locomotion. During a
purely path following task, participants spent a large portion of time orienting gaze towards the
ground over which they would soon pass. However, in Experiment 1, the presence of hoops
resulted in gaze predominantly being oriented through the center of those hoops. Second, pilots
adapt their current trajectory in accordance with upcoming environmental conditions, suggesting
anticipatory steering through the nearest hoop to align themselves with the subsequent. Lastly,
Experiment 2 showed that even when obstacles lie directly on or close to the path participant gaze
was still oriented towards the path outline or the terrain near the path. The findings from both
studies provide evidence in support of a predominant gaze strategy where participants look towards
their desired direction of steering, with little time spent orienting gaze towards obstacles or other
objects. The last chapter is a general discussion, outlining the limitations and future directions of
the current study.
Description
August 2022
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Full Citation
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY