Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Control in a Digital Twin: Exploring the Effect of Different Points of View on User Experience in Virtual Reality

TL;DR

The paper investigates how four virtual camera perspectives in a VR-enabled digital twin affect UAV piloting performance and user experience. Using a within-subjects design with real UAV flights and synchronized digital twins, it combines objective trajectory metrics (DTW) with subjective measures ( workload, presence, cybersickness, SA, and ATI). Key findings show FPV increases mental workload and trajectory deviation, while Third Person View often yields better path alignment and is generally preferred; results support flexible, user-centered interface designs. This work advances UAV control interfaces by quantifying perspective-dependent trade-offs and offering practical design guidelines for VR and digital twin deployments in drone operations.

Abstract

Controlling Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a cognitively demanding task, with accidents often arising from insufficient situational awareness, inadequate training, and poor user experiences. Providing more intuitive and immersive visual feedback, particularly through Digital Twin technologies, offers new opportunities to enhance pilot awareness and overall experience quality. In this study, we investigate how different virtual points of view (POVs) influence user experience and performance during UAV piloting in Virtual Reality (VR), utilizing a digital twin that faithfully replicates the real-world flight environment. We developed a VR application that enables participants to control a physical DJI Mini 4 Pro drone while immersed in a digital twin with four distinct camera perspectives: Baseline View (static external), First-Person View, Chase View, and Third-Person View. Nineteen participants completed a series of ring-based obstacle courses from each perspective. In addition to objective flight data, we collected standardized subjective assessments of user experience, presence, workload, cybersickness, and situational awareness. Quantitative analyses revealed that the First-Person View was associated with significantly higher mental demand and effort, greater trajectory deviation, but smoother control inputs compared to the Third-Person and Chase perspectives. Complementing these findings, preference data indicated that the Third-Person View was most consistently favored, whereas the First-Person View elicited polarized reactions.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Comparison of the laboratory flight environment and its digital twin. a) Virtual model of the laboratory as rendered in the VR environment (digital twin). b) Photograph of the corresponding real laboratory used for UAV experiments.
• Figure 2: NASA-TLX subscales showing significant differences across VIEW conditions. Mental Demand (NASA_1) and Effort (NASA_5) both indicated higher workload in the FIRST PERSON VIEW compared to the THIRD PERSON VIEW. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM).
• Figure 3: DTW alignment example showing a representative actual drone flight path (blue) and the optimal reference path (orange) in 3D space. Axes represent normalized spatial coordinates.
• Figure 4: Boxplot of DTW distance distributions across all four camera perspectives.