Remotely Controlled Flying Aided by a Head-Slaved Camera and HMD.
Abstract
Military use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is gaining importance. Video cameras in these devices are often operated with joysticks and their image is displayed on a CRT. In this experiment, the simulated camera of a simulated UAV was slaved to the operator's head movements and displayed using a Helmet Mounted Display (HMD). The task involved manoeuvring a UAV along a winding course marked by trees. The influence of several parameters of the set up (HMD optics, Field of View (FOV), image lag, monocular vs. stereoscopic presentation) on a set of flight handling characteristics was assessed. To enable variation of FOV and to study the effect of the HMD optics, a simulated HMD image consisting of a head slaved window (with variable FOV), was projected on a screen. One of the FOVs, generated in this way, corresponded with the FOV of the real HMD, enabling a comparison. The results show that the simulated HMD yields a significantly better performance than the real HMD. Performance with a FOV of 17 deg is significantly lower than with 34 or 57 deg. An image lag of 50 ms, typical of pan and tilt servo motor systems, has a small but significant influence on steering accuracy. Monocular and stereoscopic presentation did not result in significant performance differences.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 08, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA341256
Entities
People
- P. Padmos
- S. C. De Vries