This paper presents a formation control approach for contactless gesture-based Human-Swarm Interaction (HSI) between a team of multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and a human worker. The approach is intended for monitoring the safety of human workers, especially those working at heights. In the proposed dynamic formation scheme, one UAV acts as the leader of the formation and is equipped with sensors for human worker detection and gesture recognition. The follower UAVs maintain a predetermined formation relative to the worker's position, thereby providing additional perspectives of the monitored scene. Hand gestures allow the human worker to specify movements and action commands for the UAV team and initiate other mission-related commands without the need for an additional communication channel or specific markers. Together with a novel unified human detection and tracking algorithm, human pose estimation approach and gesture detection pipeline, the proposed approach forms a first instance of an HSI system incorporating all these modules onboard real-world UAVs. Simulations and field experiments with three UAVs and a human worker in a mock-up scenario showcase the effectiveness and responsiveness of the proposed approach.

翻译：本文提出一种面向多旋翼无人机编队与人类工作者之间非接触式手势交互的编队控制方法，旨在监测人类工作者的安全，特别是高空作业人员。在所提出的动态编队方案中，一架无人机担任编队领航者，配备用于检测人类工作者和识别手势的传感器。跟随无人机相对于工作者位置保持预设编队形态，从而为监测场景提供多视角信息。手势指令允许人类工作者向无人机编队指定运动和动作指令，并启动其他任务相关命令，无需额外通信通道或特定标记物。结合新型统一化人体检测与跟踪算法、人体姿态估计方法及手势检测流水线，本方法首次在真实无人机上实现包含所有上述模块的人机群交互系统。通过三架无人机与人类工作者在模拟场景中的仿真与现场实验，验证了所提方法的有效性与响应能力。