Assessing pedestrian perceptions on drone operations in urban environments using virtual reality: the effects of mission transparency on acceptance

Technological advancements alongside with the autonomy of systems have fostered the introduction of new aerial concepts such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM). Towards integrating these operations in urban environments, besides technological aspects, factors including societal acceptance, play a fundamental role in the success of UAM. Safe simulation environments provided by immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality can enhance the assessment of social acceptance studies. This study examines of how mission transparency affects public acceptance of drones in urban environments using Virtual Reality. A within-subjects design, with a four-level factor variation for mission transparency was conducted, with the conditions: baseline, lighting information, color-coding and billboard signage. A total of 98 subjects experienced the conditions and provided subjective ratings regarding their perceptions. Results from a repeated measures ANOVA indicate that there is a significant difference across the conditions (p- $$value<0.001$$ ), with the billboard experimental condition presenting highest risk perception. Influence of participants characteristics such as preexisting opinion on drones and subscription to delivery services were found to affect participants ratings. Different than previous works, this study contributes by extending the knowledge on drone acceptance as well as providing a streamlined workflow for creating high-fidelity VR applications to Urban Air Mobility.