On 7 October at 10:15, Mayowa Olaide Olapade will defend his doctoral thesis “Human-centered Autonomous Drone Systems”.
Supervisor
Assoc. Prof. Huber Flores, University of Tartu
Opponents
Prof. Giulio Jacucci, University of Helsinki (Finland)
Prof. Florian Michahelles, Technische Universität Wien (Austria)
Summary
Autonomous drones, service robots, and unmanned vehicles are increasingly integrated into real-world environments, supporting applications ranging from logistics to environmental monitoring. Despite major advances in sensing, navigation, and autonomy, research has largely prioritized technical performance while giving limited attention to human-centered design and interaction. As these systems operate in close proximity to people, understanding how humans perceive them and how they interact becomes essential for their successful deployment. We investigate how human-centered perspectives can be integrated into the design and deployment of autonomous drones. The central research question is: How can we evaluate human perception of autonomous drones before deploying them, and how can people interact with these drones effectively?
To address this question, we present three human-centered contributions towards autonomous drone deployments. First, SHOWTIME enables large-scale human evaluation of drone deployments through generative simulations and pervasive displays. This removes the need for physical drone operations during early-stage evaluation. Second, AgrI-BoT extends drone control interfaces with conversational human interactions powered by large language models and edge computing, demonstrated through an agricultural scouting case study. Third, Pervasive Chatbots introduces a multi-device interaction tool that enables human operators and other device users to collaborate with autonomous drones through distributed conversational interfaces. Together, these contributions embed human-centered design into autonomous drone systems by enabling early evaluation of human perception and supporting more intuitive human–drone interaction, ultimately contributing to safer and more acceptable deployments.
