Increasing Consumer Drone Safety Through an IoT-Based Custom Illumination System

Consumer-based drone applications have been increasing rapidly in recent years. Most of these applications, such as aerial surveillance, crop dusting, and real estate photography rely, on frameworks that are based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Although solutions have been proposed to security issues due to connectivity, physical safety issues have not been sufficiently discussed. To solve one such issue, the conspicuousness of drones during flight, we have proposed an illumination system that can adapt to different weather conditions using an IoT framework. To test the feasibility of our illumination system, we conducted two tests, a power consumption test, and a human-in-the-loop assessment. The power test showed different illumination configurations did affect power consumption. The human-in-the-loop assessment demonstrated the effect of illumination on distance perception and how sunlight levels affected the drone's preferred illumination color. As drones begin to operate in more crowded spaces, such as cities, the need to ensure the safety of the public will be paramount. Through this prototype, we aim to provide designers with guidance on how to consider illumination for safer drone operations. Future studies, we plan to explore using illumination to increase safety and congruence in future application areas, such as delivery.