Effective Remote Drone Control Using Augmented Virtuality

Since the remote drones control is mentally very demanding, supporting the pilot with both, first person view (FPV) and third person view (TPV) of the drone may help the pilot with orientation capability during the mission. Therefore, we present a system that is based on augmented virtuality technology, where real data from the drone are integrated into the virtual 3D environment model (video-stream, 3D structures, location information). In our system, the pilot is mostly piloting the drone using FPV, but can whenever switch to TPV in order to freely look around the situation of poor orientation. The proposed system also enables efficient mission planning, where the pilot can define 3D areas with different potential security risks or set navigation waypoints, which will be used during the mission to navigate in defined zones and visualize the overall situation in the virtual scene augmented by online real data.