Look, a guidance drone! Assessing the Social Acceptability of Companion Drones for Blind Travelers in Public Spaces.

Using assistance technology always comes with the challenge of social acceptability. While an accessibility device might have great implications for a person with disabilities, it might come with unpleasant social implications. In this paper, we want to assess the social implications of flying companion quadcopters for navigating persons with visual impairments. We conducted an acceptability study with 15 sighted and 5 visually impaired participants and report on the results.