We’ve seen the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset used for video games, which we guess that was what it was designed for, but it seems that the headset is capable of doing more than that and has actually been used to control drones! Dubed the Oculus FPV, this is a project put together by Intuitive Aerial that basically uses the Oculus Rift to get a birds-eye view of what the drone is seeing, which we have to say is probably a pretty novel experience. The drone is carrying a pair of cameras and a laptop, and then footage is then sent to a laptop on the ground, which is then sent through the Oculus Rift.
It communicates with the headset via WiFi but since it relies on WiFi connectivity to communicate with the headset and vice versa, range is a problem as it can only travel about 50-100m before it is out of range. It’s a pretty cool experiment and while attaching cameras to drones is nothing new, experiencing what the drone is seeing through the Oculus Rift headset will probably be a whole new experience. If you’d like to see the Oculus FPV project in action, check out the video above for the details.
Filed in . Read more about Oculus Rift.