Realtime Human-UAV Interaction Using Deep Learning

In this paper, we propose a realtime human gesture identification for controlling a micro UAV in a GPS denied environment. Exploiting the breakthrough of deep convolution network in computer vision, we develop a robust Human-UAV Interaction (HUI) system that can detect and identify a person gesture to control a micro UAV in real time. We also build a new dataset with 23 participants to train or fine-tune the deep neural networks for human gesture detection. Based on the collected dataset, the state-of-art YOLOv2 detection network is tailored to detect the face and two hands locations of a human. Then, an interpreter approach is proposed to infer the gesture from detection results, in which each interpreted gesture is equivalent to a UAV flying command. Real flight experiments performed by non-expert users with the Bebop 2 micro UAV have approved our proposal for HUI. The gesture detection deep model with a demo will be publicly available to aid the research work.