Operating a drone manually requires pilots to watch a screen while coordinating controls. This divides attention between the aircraft and its surroundings. Researchers are exploring ways to make drone operation more intuitive and less dependent on continuous visual monitoring. A wearable interface developed at Jeonbuk National University combines hand gestures for sending commands with abdominal vibrations that indicate the drone’s position relative to the user.

The research team was led by professor Kee-Ho Yu of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Jeonbuk National University, Republic of Korea, along with researcher Myeong-Ho Shin and Dr. Giancarlo Eder Guerra Padilla from the same institute. The team paired a sensor worn on the back of the hand with a belt containing 36 vibration motors. A computer interprets 12 gestures as drone commands. Drone telemetry is translated into vibration patterns indicating direction, relative height and distance. The system was assessed through gesture-recognition tests, simulated flying, an indoor tactile-perception study and two real-drone tasks.

This paper was published in the journal IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.