Virtual environments for modeling the interaction of operators with UAVs in closed spaces in potentially dangerous situations

The effective interaction between humans and robotic devices is designed to provide a timely response to potentially dangerous situations arising in complex environments. One example is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) by human operators to inspect enclosed spaces. These units allow the search and identification of target objects, helping a human operator identify signs of Potentially Dangerous Situations (PDSs). At the same time in a closed (and often cluttered) space to control the emerging situations it is necessary to involve developed means of conducting spatial orientation based on Artificial Intelligence Technology, Computer Vision, 3D-visualization, Local Positioning And Navigation, etc. Despite the progress made in autonomous UAVs control, active human participation in detecting signs of PDSs is an important condition for maintaining the security of the internal environment of controlled premises. Human decision-making in situations of high uncertainty and incomplete data largely depends on means to improve his Situational Awareness (external conditions of activity) and Professional Competencies (internal conditions of activity). To form them, it is necessary to develop methodology and tools for building UAVs application scenarios to give operators the necessary user experience on simulation models in the Virtual Environment of Activity. The paper investigated the development of the Virtual Environment Systems (VES) for the implementation of UAVs application scenarios in enclosed spaces in relation to multicopters that allow both autonomous and manual control. As a result of this research, prototypes of UAVs for inspection of enclosed spaces have been identified; the prospects of quadcopters use under various PDSs scenarios have been shown; the composition of promising technologies ensuring UAVs use in enclosed environments has been described; the method of design and 3D visualization of UAVs application scenarios using the original VES (named VirSim) has been proposed. The advantages of the proposed approach to modeling the use of UAVs in PDSs are the multivariate scenarios of operators' activities, which contributes to the accumulation of user experience of human interaction with flying robots.