Patent ID: 7731588

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling the movements of a vehicle having on-board controls for independently controlling the course and heading of the vehicle in response to a remote operator's control and an on-board camera/video transmitter for recording and transmitting a video stream of the camera's view of the physical environment within which the vehicle is operating, comprising: a gamepad comprising a first joystick and a second joystick and having a plurality of outputs responsive to user-controlled movements of the first and the second joystick and one or more user-controlled buttons, wherein the first joystick is mapped to provide an open loop directional control over steering of the vehicle, the second joystick is mapped to provide an open loop directional control over offset of the vehicle to thereby provide an open-loop control over the vehicle course and heading; a tracker configured to control a head-pose of the remote vehicle as an open-loop control by providing yaw, pitch, and roll orientation angles as outputs; a processor comprising a control mapping algorithm and a remote vehicle controller, wherein the control mapping algorithm is configured to map the gamepad and the tracker outputs to control the course, heading, displacement, and head-pose of the remote-controlled vehicle, and the remote vehicle controller sends commands to the on-board controls to direct the movement of the remote vehicle; and a display for receiving the video stream and displaying the movement of the vehicle to the operator.