Real–Time Virtual Reality Visualizer for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

The visualization of tele-operated and autonomous executions in the field becomes difficult if the real environments are located in remote areas or present potential dangers for visualizing clients. This work proposes an application based on virtual reality to recreate in real time the execution tasks of a UAV, which is operated remotely or autonomously on a real environment. To achieve a third level of immersion, the reconstruction of the real environment where the field tests are executed is considered, offering the possibility of knowing the real scenario where the tests are executed. The consideration of using commercial UAV development kits is taken into account to obtain internal information, as well as to control the drone from client devices. The results presented validate the unification of 3D models and the reconstruction of the environment, as well as the consumption of vehicle information and climate parameters.