A Kinect-based natural interface for quadrotor control

The evolution of input device technologies led to identification of the natural user interface (NUI) as the clear evolution of the human-machine interaction, following the shift from command-line interfaces (CLI) to graphical user interfaces (GUI). The design of user interfaces requires a careful mapping of complex user “actions” in order to make the human-computer interaction (HCI) more intuitive, usable, and receptive to the user’s needs: in other words, more user-friendly and, why not, fun. NUIs constitute a direct expression of mental concepts and the naturalness and variety of gestures, compared with traditional interaction paradigms, can offer unique opportunities also for new and attracting forms of human-machine interaction. In this paper, a kinect-based NUI is presented; in particular, the proposed NUI is used to control the Ar.Drone quadrotor.