Gaze of building inspectors could inform code for drone inspections

Researchers in the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering have studied how building inspectors make their safety assessments by analysing their gaze patterns with eye-tracking software. The eye-tracking data could then be used to code autonomous systems, such as drones.

The researchers' results were published in Scientific Reports.  

“We are looking for a way to capture how an inspector thinks and makes assessments on a building site to understand their intentions and diagnostic choices,” corresponding author Rebecca Napolitano, assistant professor of architectural engineering, said in a statement. “Studying where they look, and for how long, at certain points on a building can help us do that.”

Ten architectural engineering graduate students were tasked with assessing two building facades while wearing Tobii eye-tracking glasses. The glasses have two cameras to measure movements and positioning simultaneously. One camera faces the object, and the other is trained on the user’s eyes to measure pupil dilation and gaze direction.