PRE2015 3 Groep1 interaction decisionmaking

Interaction drone-security guard

The drone informs the security guard when it noticies a potential intruder. After that, the security guard should be able to send the drone information on what it should do, but the drone should also be able to act autonomously up to a certain level. From the moment the drone detects something, these actions should be considerd.

Moment of detection

First of all, what could and should the drone do once it detects something? Even before the guard has decided whether this is a false alarm, or a legit alarm, the drone can be programmed to follow whatever it detected. This way, the guard can have a better look at what the drone detected and make a faster desision about the detection. It is important that the drone keeps a safe distance to the suspcect while following because of the safety of the suspect. The guard could inform the drone to get closer to the suspect at some point if necessary.

Assuming the alarms is legit, the drone has the following option in different situations

One intruder

The drone will autonomously follow the suspect and make pictures when it does, in order to identify the suspect. It does not need any futher information from the security guard to know that it has to do this. This is quite an easy example with only 1 suspect.

Multiple intruders

What are the options when theres multiple intruders? Ofcourse, a single drone can only follow one person at a time. So if multiple intruders decide to split up, it has to choose. It could choose to follow the first person that is detected, or the nearest person. These are examples of autonomous decisions, but the drone could also receive orders from the security manager, if he thinks it is better to follow another person.

Securing important locations

A whole different approach would be to not follow one of the persons, but to fly to some important location, for example a location where valuable goods is stored. One should consider that this strategy could help the intruder find valuable goods if they do not know where to look at first. a drone could also choose to keep an eye on the main or nearest exit.

Combining strategies with multiple drones

Using multiple drones would allow you to combine these strategies. And these strategies could all be pre-programmed into the drones, which means it would not require interaction between the security guard and the drones. But the security guard should still be able to ovverrule these stragegies when he things this is necessary.

Losing sight of suspect

Things would become more complicated if an intruder manages to somehow escape from the field of view of the drone. In that case the drone would not know what to do and it would need information from the security guard. The security guard knows how the environment looks and could predict what the intruder could do in a certain situation. So if an intruder chooses to hide under or in something, the security guard can inform the drone what to do, for example, if an intruder decides to hide in a trash can, the security guard will most likely tell the drone to just wait, because there is nowhere the intruder can go. The security guard could also choose to remotely control the drone himself because it would be to compicated for the drone to find the intruder again on its own.

Interaction drone-suspect

The drone will probably have little to no real interaction with the suspect.It could be possible for the drone to let the suspect know that he is being detected and that the police is on its way, but you cannot expect the drone to “arrest” the suspect, or to order the suspect to stop trying to escape. In our society, people simply would not let themselvses be arrested by a machine or robot, because it is not a human. Moreover, since the drone does not have access to any type of violence or threatments, it is very difficult to force an intruder to leave the stolen things and kindly wait for the police to arrive.