We aim to use virtual reality (VR) to improve the spatial awareness of pilots by real-time scanning of the environment around the drone using onboard sensors, live streaming of this environment to a VR headset, and rendering a virtual representation of the drone and its environment for the pilot. This way, the pilot can see the immediate environment of the drone up close from a third-person perspective, as opposed to the first-person perspective that most drone cameras provide. This provides much more information about the drone surroundings for the pilot while operating the drone than existing teleoperation solutions. Previous solutions using VR have relied upon pre-made designs of the environment, which makes it difficult to adapt to changing environments. Our solution, in contrast, scans the environment as you fly, making it much more flexible for use in unknown environments.
View on arXiv@article{hughes2025_2505.22599,
title={ VR-Based Control of Multi-Copter Operation },
author={ Jack T. Hughes and Mohammad Ghufran and Hossein Rastgoftar },
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.22599},
year={ 2025 }
}