IGUANA: Immersive Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Consumer UAV
Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/Report › Conference contribution › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | VRST '25: Proceedings of the 2025 31st ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology |
| Editors | Anil Batmaz, Mayra Barrera Machuca, Francisco Ortega, Daniel Zielasko, Kangsoo Kim, Rick Skarbez, Lucas Plabst, Amy Banić, Mine Stroppa |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| Pages | 1–11 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| ISBN (print) | 9798400721182 |
| Publication status | Published - 4 Dec 2025 |
| Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Conference
| Title | 31st ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | VRST 2025 |
| Conference number | 31 |
| Duration | 12 - 14 November 2025 |
| Website | |
| Degree of recognition | International event |
| Location | Hyatt Hotel Montreal |
| City | Montreal |
| Country | Canada |
External IDs
| ORCID | /0000-0002-8923-6284/work/199215763 |
|---|---|
| ORCID | /0000-0002-3513-6448/work/199216637 |
| ORCID | /0009-0000-2369-7371/work/199217900 |
Keywords
DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards
Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis
Keywords
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Drone, Spatial User Interface, 3D User Interface, Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality