Public Acceptance of Civil Drones in Light of their Purpose

Driven by its diverse technological potential, drones are increasingly being deployed across various sectors and applications. With wider adoption, it remains unclear if the general public will embrace this form of indirect interaction into their everyday lives. Recent studies suggest a growing positive tendency among the general public towards drone usage, however, this perception seems to vary as per the actual purpose of their application. This study, conducted within an EU project ADACORSA, aims to understand public acceptance concerning specific purposes of drone use. It introduces five superordinate application-categories – industrial, transport and mobility, emergencies and humanitarian aid, surveillance and societal service facilitation – into a new drone acceptance model that draws from the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). It also combines relevant concepts/determinants from other drone-specific acceptance theories, such as perceived risks and benefits, and incorporates insights from the conducted stakeholder analysis with experts within the drone industry (Upadrasta et. al, 2021). Subsequently, an online survey was made available in 16 languages, and a total sample of 601 participants across Europe took part. The objective was twofold: to assess the model validity as well as to investigate the relationships between the proposed determinants and acceptance of drone use for each of the five application-categories. Data analysis included structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings indicate that perceived benefits and perceived risks significantly influence the acceptance of all five application-categories, except for emergency purposes, where risks were found to have no impact. Furthermore, the degree of influence of these factors varied across the application-categories, thus underlining the significance for stakeholders. Additionally, the impact factors are greatly dependable on the application of the drone use. Control opportunities were found to positively affect drone acceptance only for purposes related to state operations such as police surveillance and traffic observation and societal service facilitation such as weather monitoring, and infrastructure inspection and maintenance. The analysis not only furnishes the drone providers with insights on the level of public acceptance towards specific application-categories, but also enables them to position themselves with reference to more widely acceptable drone applications such as emergency use. Consequently, stakeholders can leverage this information in making informed decisions and devising effective mitigation strategies. Lastly, this research provides an adaptable model that can be utilised to further examine acceptance of other innovative UAV-related applications.