FOLDAWAY DroneSense, a controller for haptic information encoding for drone pilots

Over the last decade, the number of drones has significantly increased. In parallel, researchers have started to investigate new human-drone interaction paradigms for a more natural and immersive piloting experience. The use of haptic feedback to establish a bidirectional interaction with a remote drone is a promising yet not fully exploited paradigm. In this article we introduce FOLDAWAY DroneSense, a portable controller with multi-directional force feedback for drone piloting. We also discuss four haptic interaction paradigms with the aim of boosting immersion and safety during teleoperation, and to simplify the training of first-time users.