ABSTRACT
Three-dimensional (3D) positioning in real and virtual spaces is needed for mixed reality robotic systems. This chapter introduces a cheap, high precision, 3D positioning system leveraging the HTC Vive virtual reality lighthouse that allows a drone to autonomously fly in real space as well as virtual space. To autonomously control the drone effectively, sensor aggregation was added using higher refresh rate data coming from the quadcopter accelerometer. To simplify and encapsulate the complexity of the interaction with the HTC Vive system, we designed a lightweight and cheap device with four coplanar HTC Vive sensors, responsible of synchronizing with the lighthouse and computing the two-dimensional (2D) position of each sensor. After the device transmits enough 2D information, it is possible estimate the 3D pose of the object relative to the lighthouse. To solve the problem, a computer vision algorithm was used with the 2D location of each sensor acting as a high precision point in a virtual image.
