IGUANA: Immersive Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Consumer UAV

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Abstract

As the markets for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and mixed reality (MR) headsets continue to grow, recent research has increasingly explored their integration, which enables more intuitive, immersive, and situationally aware control systems. We present IGUANA, an MR-based immersive guidance, navigation, and control system for consumer UAVs. IGUANA introduces three key elements beyond conventional control interfaces: (1) a 3D terrain map interface with draggable waypoint markers and live camera preview for high-level control, (2) a novel spatial control metaphor that uses a virtual ball as a physical analogy for low-level control, and (3) a spatial overlay that helps track the UAV when it is not visible with the naked eye or visual line of sight is interrupted. We conducted a user study to evaluate our design, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and found that (1) the 3D map interface is intuitive and easy to use, relieving users from manual control and suggesting improved accuracy and consistency with lower perceived workload relative to conventional dual-stick controller, (2) the virtual ball interface is intuitive but limited by the lack of physical feedback, and (3) the spatial overlay is very useful in enhancing the users’ situational awareness.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationVRST '25: Proceedings of the 2025 31st ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology
EditorsAnil Batmaz, Mayra Barrera Machuca, Francisco Ortega, Daniel Zielasko, Kangsoo Kim, Rick Skarbez, Lucas Plabst, Amy Banić, Mine Stroppa
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages1–11
Number of pages11
ISBN (print)9798400721182
Publication statusPublished - 4 Dec 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title31st ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology
Abbreviated titleVRST 2025
Conference number31
Duration12 - 14 November 2025
Website
Degree of recognitionInternational event
LocationHyatt Hotel Montreal
CityMontreal
CountryCanada

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-8923-6284/work/199215763
ORCID /0000-0002-3513-6448/work/199216637
ORCID /0009-0000-2369-7371/work/199217900

Keywords

Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis

Keywords

  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Drone, Spatial User Interface, 3D User Interface, Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality