Intuitive Aerial, a group that uses camera technology to create airborne rigs, outfitted a drone with an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, allowing users to control the flying box and see from its point of view remotely.
The video above demonstrates this setup. The drone carries a laptop that is connected back to the Oculus Rift, feeding it images via wireless internet. The person controlling the drone through the Oculus will see everything the drone encounters rather than a digital representation of objects. The laptop compresses the video recorded by the rig's two cameras and sends them back to the viewer in realtime.
The only catch is the range on the rig: since the communication to the Oculus depends on Wi-fi, transmissions will stop between 50 and 100 meters.
"We have dreamed of this system since before we heard of the Oculus Rift," reads a post accompanying the above video on Intuitive Aerial's website. "It is like a piece of science fiction that just came true."
Intuitive Aerial adds they are planning to make rigs using smaller "specific-purpose units" rather than laptops running software, allowing for higher HD resolution of images and greater mobility.
