Researchers at MIT have developed a new virtual reality drone training system that allows operators to experience a virtual environment during flight training operations. The research team calls the virtual reality drone system “Flight Goggles”. The development of this new technology can significantly decrease the number of drone accidents experienced during training sessions. This also provides drone operators with a wide range of virtual environments to be able to test high speed drones that would otherwise be a difficult task to use in the real world.

Training drone operators to fly their drones faster, especially around barriers, is an accident prone exercise that many drone owners have discovered the hard way. It means higher costs for researchers due to the replacement of parts due to crashes and collisions. Now with the virtual reality training system, the MIT researchers have created a game changing system for drone training.

One of the researchers, Sertac Karaman, is an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. He stated that the virtual training technology will give rise to faster drones and create self sufficient vehicles that are more responsive and efficient. Karaman and the rest of the team will present the details of their virtual reality training system at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Karaman has always been a huge fan of competitive high speed drone racing. It was his love of the sport that inspired and motivated him to begin research on developing this new virtual reality technology. In drone racing, remote-controlled drones are flown by human operators who try to fly fast through a complex maze of doors, windows, and other barriers. Karaman wondered about the sport and the idea started to form on how these drone operators could train to fly faster and more precise without damaging their drones.

Within the next few years, Karaman plans to take part in a drone racing competition and hopes to beat out the competition. However, to accomplish this, the team will need to develop a completely new training program. At the moment, training autonomous drones is a very physical endeavor. Operators fly their drones in a large, enclosed testing space where large nets are hung to catch any out of control drones. The facilities also have obstacles, such as doors and windows so that the drone operators can learn to fly through tight spaces. When the drones crash, they have to be fixed or replaced, which can cause delays in the research and development of the project not to mention the extra costs incurred.

Karaman and his colleagues want to find a way of training their drones without these restrictions.  The development of their new virtual reality drone simulator will eliminate the dangers and costs involved with the inevitable crashes that come with high speed drone flying. It will also solve the problem of having to test in a fixed, closed environment. The possibilities could be endless by helping all types of drone operators increase their skills without worrying about costly accidents.