JPL NASA Creates A Very Immersive Way To Control Space Robots With Oculus Rift & The Kinect 2

JPL NASA Creates A Very Immersive Way To Control Space Robots With Oculus Rift & The Kinect 2

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been on the hunt for a more natural way to maneuver robots in space for some time now, resulting in cool experiments like using a Leap Motion controller to remotely control a Mars rover and using an Oculus Rift plus a Virtuix Omni to take a virtual tour of the Red Planet. It therefore made sense for the folks at JPL to sign up for the latest Kinect for Windows developer program in order to get their hands on the newer and more precise Kinect 2 (which, incidentally, is not available as a standalone unit separate from the Xbox One) to see if it would offer yet another robotics solution.

They received their dev kit in late November, and after a few days of tinkering, were able to hook up an Oculus Rift with the Kinect 2 in order to manipulate an off-the-shelf robotic arm. According to our interview with a group of JPL engineers, the combination of the Oculus's head-mounted display and the Kinect's motion sensors has resulted in "the most immersive interface" JPL has built to date. Join us after the break to see a video of this in action and find out just why one of them has called this build nothing short of revolutionary.