Telepresence, the perception of presence within a physically remote or simulated site, has been identified as a design ideal for synthetic environments. However, confusion exists within the literature about the precise definition of telepresence. Furthermore, there is a need for a plausible and parsimonious model of telepresence. This paper identifies three types of telepresence extant in the literature: simple telepresence, cybernetic telepresence, and experiential telepresence. The third definition is the most interesting. This paper reviews the origins of experiential telepresence and the theoretical approaches commonly used to explain it. One can term these technological approaches, which emphasize the role of control/display technology, and psychological approaches, which identify experiential telepresence with known psychological phenomena. Finally, the paper presents and discusses an integrative approach to telepresence featuring a structured attentional resource model. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of future human-machine interfaces for teleoperated robots and virtual reality systems.

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Advanced manufacturing systems integrate human workers with computers, automation, and robots. However, they do not often include a class of robotic device called a teleoperator. Teleoperators are human‐robot systems that combine powerful human perceptual and problem‐solving capabilities with the hardiness of machines. Therefore, they are more capable of interacting with dynamic environments than autonomous robots and yet insulate the human user from hazards in the work environment. The aims of this paper are to (1) introduce the reader to teleoperators and show how they might find a niche in advanced manufacturing systems and (2) discuss the human factors challenges presented by teleoperation. The paper concentrates on the existing state‐of‐the‐art, including examples of the capabilities of existing teleoperator technology and current challenges in teleoperator human‐machine interfaces. @ 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This study assessed the utility of measures of situation awareness (SA) and attention allocation for quantifying telepresence, the sense of being present at a remote site, in a teleoperation task scenario. Attention and SA have been identified as cognitive constructs potentially underlying telepresence. The motivation for this research was to establish an objective measure of telepresence and investigate the relationship between telepresence and teleoperation performance. Twenty-four research participants performed a virtual ordnance disposal task at varying levels of difficulty (LODs). The task involved locating, identifying, and disposing of virtual land mines in an outdoor environment using a simulated remote-control rover with a robotic arm. Performance, SA, and attention allocation were recorded along with subjective assessments of telepresence. Results demonstrated LOD effects on performance and telepresence. Regression analysis revealed LOD and attention to explain significant portions of the variance in telepresence. Results of the study provide further evidence that telepresence may share a relationship with performance, and that cognitive constructs, such as attention and SA, may serve as alternative, objective measures of telepresence.

Human-machine interfaces that facilitate t&presence are speculated to improve performance with t&operators. Unfortunately, there is little experimental evidence to substantiate a direct link between the two. Further, there are limited data available on technological and psychological factors that affect t&presence. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the influence of interface design configuration, and control mode and latency on t&operation performance, t&presence, and workload in a pick-and-place task. It was conducted to enhance understanding of the concept of t&presence and promote future development of t&presence-based guidelines for t&operator systems. An experiment was conducted in which subjects were required to control a t&robot in a simple pick-and-place task through a virtual reality (VR) interface with or without live-video feedback on the motion of the robot. Rotational or translational motion control of the robot was studied under four control latencies ranging from 0 to 4 seconds. Results demonstrated significant benefits of using VR in conjunction with video feedback to control the t&robot. Rotational control appeared to better meet user expectations of robot motion control than modes involving translations ofjoint positions. Performance with the VR interface without live video feedback appeared to be sensitive to control latency. Correlation analysis provided further evidence of a positive Iii between t&presence and performance.