Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) manipulation assisted by Augmented Reality (AR): The case of a drone
Dimitris Mourtzis, John Angelopoulos, Nikos Panopoulos
Abstract
Drones have proven to be valuable tools in a variety of industries in recent years under the Industry 4.0 framework. Construction, real estate, agriculture, oil and gas, education, and many other industries are reporting fewer accidents, lower costs, and increased efficiency by integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to their operations. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the use of multiple UAVs for indoor activities, such as material handling or monitoring tasks, and more specifically real-time remote monitoring, wireless coverage, and remote sensing. Thus, UAVs can be considered as proactive problem solvers and serve IoT platforms for better decision making via efficient and cost-effective data collection and monitoring. Additionally, more complex drone operations also necessitate specialized software as well as data processing capabilities. However, there is a lack of research works in the field of UAVs custom-made handling interfaces, especially targeting Industrial environments such as shopfloors. Therefore, in this manuscript the design and development of a method for the tele-operation of drones based on the utilization of Augmented Reality is presented.