Towards human-centered interaction with UAV swarms: Framework, system design, and user study

As Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms gain traction in military, logistics, and emergency response scenarios, the demand for “one-to-many” UAV swarm controlling continues to grow, positioning Human-Swarm Interaction (HSI) as a critical area of UAV swarm research. However, existing UAV swarm control systems focus primarily on autonomy and low-level control, often neglecting operator cognition and human factors in interaction level. This oversight frequently leads to high cognitive load and reduced control efficiency, particularly in scenarios involving large-scale, heterogeneous information and complex task coordination. To address these challenges, and drawing on extensive experience from existing UAV swarm control system projects, we propose a human-centered HSI interaction framework grounded in the classical OODA (Observe–Orient–Decide–Act) cognitive model to represent the operator’s decision-making process. The framework introduces six HSI-adapted design principles that guide system development across interaction workflows, interface layout, task representation mechanisms, etc. Based on this framework, we develop an HSI prototype system that enables a single operator to control more than 20 UAVs simultaneously. We then evaluate its performance through user studies across usability, interaction efficiency, and cognitive support dimensions. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach effectively reduces operator cognitive load and enhances control performance, though further refinements are needed in specific interaction details and interface optimization.