Modeling Pointing Tasks in Human-Blimp Interactions

We investigate interaction between human and a miniature autonomous blimp, by letting the human control position of the blimp through pointing motion. The blimp is controlled by a position feedback controller, with the reference position set to the position of pointer. We observe that the blimp can follow the pointing motion, and reach certain target position. Since the human intention represented by the desired target position for the blimp is not measurable during the process, the Vector Integration to Endpoint (VITE) model is applied to model the dynamics of human pointing motion and to identify the hidden human intention. Stability analysis shows that the closed-loop human-blimp dynamics are exponentially stable. Experimental data verifies that the VITE model is applicable to model human blimp interaction in 3D space, and the human intention can be identified from trajectories of the blimp and pointer movements.