From Control to Command: A Bimanual Mimetic Gesture Interface for Drone Swarm Maneuvering in Distracted Environments

To address high cognitive load and latency in drone swarm control, we propose BiMime, an asymmetric bimanual system based on mimetic interaction. While traditional unimanual interfaces force inefficient serial switching between formation and flight, BiMime enables parallel execution by assigning discrete formation management to the left hand ("Commander") and continuous motion to the right ("Pilot"). By mapping hand spatial configurations directly to swarm geometries through intuitive metaphors, the system significantly reduces cognitive complexity. A preliminary pilot study suggests that BiMime shows promise in reducing task completion time, error rates, and workload (NASA-TLX) while achieving high usability (SUS), validating its efficacy in demanding tactical environments.