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While unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) have been recognized as potential robotic teammates that could be incorporated into the construction industry, communication between workers and drones may impose additional mental demands and workloads that could lead to workers’ mental overload on construction jobsites. To address this concern, this study examines and quantifies workers’ mental demands while communicating with drones at different human-drone interaction levels—coexistence, cooperation, and collaboration. During a futuristic bricklaying experiment wherein workers needed to communicate with drones at different interaction levels, psychophysiological sensors measured electrodermal activity, brain activation, and eye movements to assess whether the respective interactions affected workers’ mental demands. The results indicate that coexistence requires workers’ visual attention, whereas cooperation imposes affective and perceptual demands since workers were frustrated and confused when decoding and responding to messages from the drone. Moreover, higher levels of mental demands were identified in collaborative communications because sharing an object with nearby drones raised workers’ safety concerns. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by demonstrating workers experience varying dimensions of mental demands during communication with drones, and the study suggests strategies to enhance effortless worker-drone communication at coexistence, cooperation, and collaboration levels to improve worker well-being in future construction.
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This content will become publicly available on June 19, 2026
The Impact of Physically Demanding Human-Drone Communication on Worker Mental Stress
While drones have exhibited considerable potential to revolutionize the construction industry, previous studies across domains have proposed that human-drone interaction could cause adverse impacts on humans (e.g., collision and discomfort). Given that construction has been recognized as a hazardous and high-stress workplace, it deserves deep exploration regarding how newly introduced drones will influence worker well-being during the interaction. However, there is a paucity of research on worker stress when communicating with drones in construction. Successful human-drone interaction must necessitate seamless and comfortable communication between workers and drones. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of physically demanding response levels on construction workers’ mental and physical well-being throughout the communication cycle. Three levels of physical responses (low, medium, and high) required for drone communication were simulated in an extended reality roofing experiment. During the communication process, real-time stress levels were assessed through participants’ electrodermal activity. The results indicated that a higher physical level of communication significantly increased workers’ higher stress levels in both the response and decoding phases. Additionally, providing drones’ feedback in verbal human-drone communication is especially important to reduce workers’ confusion and mental stress. This study highlights the critical need for worker-centric design and communication strategies in drone integration within construction.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2128970
- PAR ID:
- 10656045
- Publisher / Repository:
- CIB
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CIB Conferences
- Volume:
- 1
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 3067-4883
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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