Holistic Operational Reality for Unified Systems

This repository is the research-facing release channel for HORUS. It packages the project narrative, release-facing documentation, and website assets while active implementation evolves across the source repositories.

Overview

HORUS (Holistic Operational Reality for Unified Systems) is a mixed-reality interface for managing heterogeneous mobile robot teams and teleoperating individual member of the team. The current platform targets Meta Quest 3 and is designed around a workspace-centered operational workflow for real-world robot management, not only lab visualization.

This repository is intentionally documentation- and research-oriented:

• release channel for the HORUS application,
• project website assets and top-level narrative,
• high-level onboarding for researchers, reviewers, and collaborators.

Repository Role in the HORUS Stack

The active implementation is split across three source repositories:

• horus - Meta Quest MR runtime (Unity application)
• horus_sdk - SDK, registration payloads, examples, and dashboard tooling
• horus_ros2 - ROS 2 bridge/runtime infrastructure (TCP/WebRTC)

This repository (horus_research) complements them by presenting the release-facing view of the project and research direction.

Current Platform Baseline (as of current mainline)

The HORUS stack currently supports a functional multi-robot MR workflow with the following implemented baselines:

• Workspace-gated robot registration and activation in MR.
• Multi-robot camera visualization and teleoperation flows.
• Teleoperation modes including minimap and immersive camera-assisted operation.
• 2D tasking baseline:
  • Go-to-point
  • Waypoint authoring/execution
  • Label Pose authoring
  • Go-to-labeled navigation flow integration
• Sensor and map visualization baseline:
  • Camera
  • LaserScan
  • PointCloud
  • Occupancy map (global visualization path)
• DataViz control foundation in Robot Manager for supported channels (with explicit start/stop and unsubscribe behavior).
• Stereo camera pipeline support for immersive teleoperation (with minimap kept mono by design).
• WebRTC runtime/bridge recovery hardening for more reliable teleop streaming.

Research Direction and Future Goals

HORUS is being developed as a research platform for scalable mixed-reality robot operations. The next major lines of work include:

• Multi-operator collaboration (shared session state, ownership, arbitration, conflict handling)
• AI copilot assistance for supervision and mission support
• Expanded tasking workflows (multi-robot coordinated tasking, richer semantic actions)
• 3D map and advanced scene representations for spatial understanding
• Persistent mission objects (labels, pins, evidence, operator annotations)
• Session recording and after-action replay
• Adaptive streaming and resource-aware transport policies
• Semantic perception overlays and risk-aware operator guidance
• Manipulator and mobile-manipulator operational workflows

The emphasis is on experimentally grounded design decisions that can be validated in realistic multi-robot scenarios.

System Architecture (High Level)

horus_sdk (registration + orchestration + dashboard)
        <->
horus_ros2 / horus_unity_bridge (ROS2 TCP/WebRTC bridge)
        <->
HORUS MR App (Meta Quest runtime, Unity)

Releases and Installation

For application releases, use the APK packages published in the Releases section of this repository:

• https://github.com/RICE-unige/horus/releases

Typical deployment flow:

1. Install the HORUS APK on Meta Quest 3.
2. Set up the backend stack (horus_sdk + horus_ros2) on the operator laptop.
3. Connect headset and backend on the same reachable network.
4. Launch the bridge, register robots, and accept the workspace in MR.

For backend/source setup, follow the source repositories:

• SDK + installer: https://github.com/RICE-unige/horus_sdk
• ROS 2 bridge runtime: https://github.com/RICE-unige/horus_ros2
• MR runtime source (Unity): https://github.com/Omotoye/horus

Practical Validation Workflows (Current)

The current recommended validation path uses the SDK fake runtime and registration demos:

• Unified fake runtime (TF + camera + teleop + tasks, no occupancy in all-in-one ops test)
• Typical SDK registration demo for multi-robot workflows
• Stereo camera demo pair for immersive teleop validation (SBS or dual-topic)

These workflows are documented in detail in horus_sdk/README.md and tracked against the current runtime behavior in horus/README.md.

Project Website

• Project website: https://rice-unige.github.io/horus/

Roadmap Framing

HORUS development follows a staged research roadmap:

• establish a robust MR supervision and teleoperation baseline,
• expand heterogeneous tasking and data visualization depth,
• scale to multi-operator and copilot-assisted operations,
• validate through structured experiments and publish reproducible findings.

Citation

If you use HORUS or ideas from this work in your research, please cite:

O. S. Adekoya, A. Sgorbissa, C. T. Recchiuto. HORUS: A Mixed Reality Interface for Managing Teams of Mobile Robots. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02622, 2025.

@misc{adekoya2025horus,
  title         = {HORUS: A Mixed Reality Interface for Managing Teams of Mobile Robots},
  author        = {Adekoya, Omotoye Shamsudeen and Sgorbissa, Antonio and Recchiuto, Carmine Tommaso},
  year          = {2025},
  eprint        = {2506.02622},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  primaryClass  = {cs.RO},
  url           = {https://github.com/RICE-unige/horus},
  pdf           = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02622},
  note          = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02622}
}

Contact

• Omotoye Shamsudeen Adekoya
• Email: omotoye.adekoya@edu.unige.it

Acknowledgments

This project is part of a PhD research effort at the University of Genoa, under the supervision of:

• Prof. Carmine Recchiuto
• Prof. Antonio Sgorbissa

Developed at RICE Lab, University of Genoa.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. For research-facing updates, prioritize:

• clear scope and motivation,
• reproducible validation steps,
• explicit relation to current platform baseline or roadmap goals.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.