Fostering Trust Through User Interface Design in Multi-Drone Search and Rescue

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are increasingly used in search and rescue (SAR) missions, with pilots transitioning from manual control of single drones to more collaborative tasks orchestrating semi-autonomous fleets. Designing user interfaces to support UAV pilots effectively is crucial to improving the success of search missions. We developed two versions of a multi-drone SAR system prototype to simulate SAR missions and evaluated them with professional UAV SAR pilots in Sweden. Both versions showed the flight paths of the UAVs, yet in one version, a heatmap was overlayed to provide information from a lost person model. We evaluated situational awareness (SA), cognitive workload, and trust in SAR scenarios. Results showed reduced cognitive load and increased trust with the heatmap-guided interface. Findings from the contextual interviews suggest three design implications for increasing trust and acceptance for future multi-drone user interfaces.