VR-Based Control of Multi-Copter Operation

Abstract

We present a VR-based teleoperation system for multirotor flight that renders a third-person view (TPV) of the vehicle together with a live 3D reconstruction of its surroundings. The system runs on an embedded GPU (Jetson Orin NX) with ROS2-WebXR integration and streams geometry and video to a headset for closed-loop control in previously unmapped spaces. We implement a first-person video (FPV) baseline and perform matched trials with two pilots in unmapped indoor spaces. Quantitative metrics are reported from repeated trials with one pilot (N=8). TPV achieved task time comparable to FPV while improving proximal obstacle awareness (minimum obstacle distance +0.20m) and reducing contacts. These results indicate that TPV can preserve control quality while exposing hazards less visible in FPV, supporting safer teleoperation in unknown environments.