The Impact of a Structured Training Program on the Depth Perception of Ab Initio Drone Pilots

Flying remotely requires accurate perception of the environment to ensure safe operation. While remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) bring unique opportunities, they also present new challenges for the pilot, including exercising accurate depth perception. The impact of a structured training program on the improvement of depth perception skills of ab initio RPA pilots was measured. Importantly, it should be noted that such training programs are not specifically designed or intended to improve depth perception skills. Students were pre-tested prior to undergoing a training program by flying a drone away from themselves. They were required to stop and hover when they estimated the drone was over markers at three distances of 20 m, 40 m, and 60 m. After completing the 2 days of flight training, they were re-tested with the same exercise. While there was no significant improvement in distance estimation at the 20 m marker, there was significant improvement at the 40 and 60 m markers. These findings indicate that a standard, syllabus-constrained ab initio training course yields measurable gains in egocentric distance estimation beyond the action space, supporting the sufficiency of current training to transfer non-technical perceptual skills to longer VLOS ranges.