NASA Controls Robot Arm With The Oculus Rift And Xbox One Kinect

A team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) combined the still in development, but seriously cool Oculus Rift virtual reality headpiece and the new Xbox One Kinect to control a robotic arm. The result is a virtual universe provided through the Oculus Rift along with the Kinect providing the motion capture aspect so the user can easily control and manipulate robotic machinery with surprising accuracy. The application of this kind of technology, once perfected, has massive possible implementations.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqNC72fgetc[/youtube]

Imagine having an unmanned spacecraft go to try to carry out repairs on a satellite but still be able to have a human element that could control a robot in real time from the ground. Obviously the technology is not at that level of response time or control yet, but it is a pretty impressive start and a cool tie in for gaming devices to be involved in spaceflight.