AeroVR: Virtual Reality-based Teleoperation with Tactile Feedback for Aerial Manipulation
This addresses the challenge of precise control for drone operators in applications like industrial maintenance and rescue, though it is incremental as it builds on existing VR and teleoperation methods.
The paper tackled the problem of teleoperating aerial manipulation drones by developing a VR-based system with tactile feedback, which resulted in stable and robust teleoperation as shown in experimental results.
Drone application for aerial manipulation is tested in such areas as industrial maintenance, supporting the rescuers in emergencies, and e-commerce. Most of such applications require teleoperation. The operator receives visual feedback from the camera installed on a robot arm or drone. As aerial manipulation requires delicate and precise motion of robot arm, the camera data delay, narrow field of view, and blurred images caused by drone dynamics can lead the UAV to crash. The paper focuses on the development of a novel teleoperation system for aerial manipulation using Virtual Reality (VR). The controlled system consists of UAV with a 4-DoF robotic arm and embedded sensors. VR application presents the digital twin of drone and remote environment to the user through a head-mounted display (HMD). The operator controls the position of the robotic arm and gripper with VR trackers worn on the arm and tracking glove with vibrotactile feedback. Control data is translated directly from VR to the real robot in real-time. The experimental results showed a stable and robust teleoperation mediated by the VR scene. The proposed system can considerably improve the quality of aerial manipulations.