Usability Evaluation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones)
by Keva Desai and An Patel
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft that functions under remote or independent control without any pilot or passengers involved. This process can be entirely or partly self-directed but depends mostly on human involvement. They can be piloted remotely using a smartphone, tablet device, or a computer. UAVs are also referred to as “Drones”. UAVs were initially used in military applications. Nowadays, the use of drones is swiftly escalating in many areas such as commercial use, scientific, recreational, agricultural, and other applications. Some of the companies like Google, UPS, and Amazon are trying to work on a significant role where drones will deliver small packages from warehouse to doorstep. This sounds exciting! But we still don’t know about the uses, expenses, safety measures and security of this Ubicomp system. So, let’s look at some pros and cons of UAVs:
Pros
UAVs have been used by defence organizations and tech-savvy clients for quite a long time. However, the advantages of this ubicomp system expand well beyond just these sectors. These drones are affordable and easy to use. Initially, military drones were used by law enforcement, but nowadays, these small portable drones are being used by ground militaries on a day-to-day basis. These days, police are also taking advantage of drones. They use a drone, for instance, in car races. This decreases the accident chance by daring tactics numerous times over. We now have drones that are particularly intended to use during surveillance work which has exceedingly proficient motors that provide discrete, almost silent, monitoring. There are no training programs required to use drones as safety authorities typically learn how to use drones within a few hours.
Apart from this, drones are reliable during emergency responses. For instance, mountain saviours use drones in areas where it is difficult to reach. In one of the Us states, a police force saved a life of an 84-year-old man who had vanished into a swampy area. They used the drone’s thermal camera to save the man as it was nighttime and due to the bad weather, it was difficult to find the man using a helicopter. Drones with thermal imaging cameras not only can save the lives of the people but can also make it feasible to recognize victims who are difficult to spot with the naked eye. Also, drones can be used in Agriculture for several tasks of examines, controls, observation, or treatments. Equipment like cameras, sensors, and sprayers can be outfitted into the drone along with the GPS to understand the detailed maps fields.
Furthermore, drones are beneficial in capturing astonishing moments in the field of sports. The exciting shoot scenes taken by the drone provides up-close and individual viewpoints that usual, immobile cameras cannot capture. In order to shoot quick professional sports such as soccer, the use of UAVs is expected. Because, if the filming is not done on time, the photographers won’t be able to keep up with the quick movements of the players. Also, there is a big advantage to the photographers as they no longer need to run around with heavy equipment to shoot the scenes. They can just do it by operating drones. Moreover, drones can help us create 3-dimensional maps and models which are useful in the construction sites. With the help of the 3D maps, it is easy to identify problems and it makes it easy to improve the efficiency of construction.
Cons
The major drawback like lithium batteries impacts negatively to user’s usability. The UAVs (Drones) are the evolution of modern technology but contain drawbacks that affect usability. Like any technology, drones have their own disadvantages and risks. As we all know, the primary source of power drones have is lithium polymer batteries. Those batteries are made for high-performance usage, but after the full charge, the drone consumes all its power within 30–45 minutes while in the air. This is one of the major drawbacks in all types of drones except Military solar-powered drones. The lithium batteries in the drown newer last forever because the batteries chemically age will affect the amount of charge it can hold over time. The result of this will be less usage in the air and extra time in recharge. We can compare this lithium battery drawback with our Smartphones. As we all are aware of how annoying we feel when the phone battery drains rapidly, and we end-up charging our phone twice a day. The major drawback like lithium batteries to the device creates a negative impact on the usage.
The UAVs (Drones) are assembled using many components such as embedded processor, sensors, controller, transmitter, GPS module, battery, camera, etc. This component creates downsides of using the drone in unpleasant weather. Some drones are prohibited to fly during rainy or windy days because those components are not water-resistant. Also, during the foggy days, the user should not use drones since the field view will be difficult to visualize. The unpleasant weather creates high chances of an accident or technical failure in the device. Thus, the user should always read the safety manual before using any UAVs. Since the wireless component and transmitter are connected to the drone and the remote controller, it has chances of wireless communication failure. The frequency of the wireless communication is one of the drawbacks of this device. The users are intended to fly the drone far and higher in air, but there are radio frequencies that could interfere in the communication.
There are many drawbacks related to UAVs (Drones) since its shapes and sizes are different. There are strict laws and regulations in certain places that prohibit flying UAVs (Drones) and breaking the law could cost a big amount of fine. For instance, “in 2014, a tourist from France was arrested in Italy for trying to launch a drone at the Coliseum in order to get beautiful shots”. When the user is flying a drone, there are chances of attack by a wild animal. If a drone is flying in a wildlife zone then there are possibilities of attacks by wild flying animals such as Eagles, Vulture, etc.
Potential Misuse
There is the potential misuse of civilian drones for bad intentions to injure, spy, or threaten people. The drones could be used to illegally spy on someone and interrupt someone’s privacy. It even could be used to threaten or injure people by attaching explosives with it. Nowadays, criminals are also using drones to transport illegal materials to others. There are several incidents related to the potential misuse of civilian drones. In 2018, “two men were arrested for using a drone to hand cell phones to prisoners inside Rivière-des-Prairies prison in Montreal”. In the same year, “the guards intercepted a drone carrying tobacco and drugs at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford”. Therefore, the evolution of UAVs (Dones) creates issues of potential misuse by criminals.
User Experience Interviews
Interview A
For the usability evaluation, I interviewed two of my friends, one who is a professional photographer and the other whose hobby is photography. Both use drones for photography purpose, therefore, it was best to reach out to them to know about their personal experience in using drones. I got positive reviews from both from the photography point of view. They said drones are the best to take aerial view photography. Drones can fly at much lower heights than airplanes or helicopters. Therefore, he uses drones to capture low-level images that show nearby regions in detail. They can also be used in inclement weather, which is a big advantage. With the help of drones, they can also capture images of moving objects. My friend also uses drones in the weddings for the videography as it is easier to capture the moments and the decoration using drones.
Interview B
To test the usability of drones, I have communicated with one of my friends in India, who is an engineer and worked on an agricultural drone project in his senior year. India is one of the biggest agriculture production country, which transports many agriculture products out of the country. Despite the largest agriculture production country, there is a lack of innovative technology in this sector. Thus, my friend and his team were working on this agricultural drone project. During this pandemic, I have arranged a phone interview to evaluate drone usability.
In the interview, he has explained how drones could beneficial because it requires less manpower. Also, with the benefits, it comes with a large cost of maintains for farmers. He experiences a user point of view by using the drone that his team created in the agriculture field. He has mentioned, farmers can use innovative drones to spread water or pesticides in the agriculture field. I agree with him about farmers are one of the hard workers in the nation. They invest great time and money to work on the agriculture field. The innovative drones provide great support to their work. He explained it is not easy to use agriculture drones in a field, so farmers should be provided with enough knowledge or training before using drones. The drone has a map of the field, so it is not hard to manage the spreading of water or pesticides. If the agriculture field is big then the drone requires recharging power. Also, it has a limited amount of storage for water or pe6sticides, so he must bring the drone back to restore materials. The price of an agriculture drone will be expensive since the has digital equipment. Therefore, we can conclude farmers have a hard time using drones in the agriculture field.
Conclusion
After evaluation, we have noticed that there are more advantages of UAVs (Drones) compare to disadvantages. The rules and regulations helped to reduce the misuse of drones, but the government should limit the selling of big drones. The criminals misuse the big civilian drones if they can simply buy on Amazon or online. Thus, there should be a limitation in producing and selling big civilian drones. We can agree, there are many advantages of using drones to reduce manpower and increase efficiency. In less time or work, the user can solve problems without risking any lives. The photographers can capture stunning pictures from higher views. Therefore, we can conclude that there are some usage disadvantages, however, the UAVs (drones) provide significant advantages in most sectors without risking human life.
