TELESAR VI: Telexistence Surrogate Anthropomorphic Robot VI

Abstract

Telexistence refers to the general technology that allows humans to experience the real-time sensation of being in another place, interacting with a remote environment, which may be real, virtual, or a combination of both. It also refers to an advanced type of teleoperation system that allows an operator behind the controls to perform remote tasks dexterously with the feeling of being in a surrogate robot working in a remote environment. Telexistence in a real environment through a virtual environment is also possible. The concept was originally proposed by the first author in 1980, and its feasibility has been demonstrated through the construction of alter-ego robot systems called Telexistence Surrogate Anthropomorphic Robot (TELESAR) I–V. TELESAR VI is a newly developed telexistence platform for the ACCEL Embodied Media Project. It was designed and implemented with a mechanically unconstrained full-body master cockpit and a 67 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) anthropomorphic avatar robot. The avatar robot can operate in a sitting position since the main area of operation is intended to be manipulation and gestural. The system provides a full-body experience of our extended “body schema,” which allows users to maintain an up-to-date representation in space of the positions of their different body parts, including their head, torso, arms, hands, and legs. All ten fingers of the avatar robot are equipped with force, vibration, and temperature sensors and can faithfully transmit these elements of haptic information. Thus, the combined use of the robot and audiovisual information actualizes the remote sense of existence, as if the users physically existed there, with the avatar robot serving as their new body. With this experience, users can perform tasks dexterously and feel the robot’s body as their own, which provides the most simple and fundamental experience of a remote existence.

Piton: Investigating the Controllability of a Wearable Telexistence Robot

“…In contrast to linear control, scalar control maps a user-defined workspace to the robot’s physical workspace, where the user-defined workspace does not necessarily match the dimensions of the robot’s physical workspace. Linear calibration and controls are widely used in telexistence systems [ 7 , 20 ], as they can easily be applied to map a user’s head rotations to those of the telexistence robot [ 7 , 17 , 20 ]. In scalar calibration, each point is calibrated to a different point of the other workspace to control the robot.…”

“…Telexistence is a similar concept to telepresence, however, telexistence focuses on the highly-realistic sensation of existence in a remote location by engaging multiple sensory modalities [ 32 ]. TELESAR [ 7 ] is a telexistence robot, consisting of a humanoid robot and a cockpit system for controlling the robot. The cockpit consists of various control and feedback devices, including an HMD, speakers, a microphone, a haptic glove, and a motion tracking system.…”

“…However, telepresence systems have drawbacks: most systems do not enable a high sense of immersion, body ownership, or enable physical interaction. In contrast, telexistence refers to a group of technologies aiming at conveying high sense presence within remote environments through various modalities, including visual, auditory, and real-time physical interactions [ 7 , 8 ]. Despite the potential of telexistence systems, the amount of research that focuses on telexistence remains limited.…”

Experiment assisting system with local augmented body (EASY-LAB) In dual presence environment

“…The avatar robot can operate in a sitting position since the main area of operation is intended to be manipulation and gestural. The system provides a full-body experience of our extended "body schema," which allows users to maintain an up-to-date representation in space of the positions of their different body parts, including their head, torso, arms, hands, and legs [13]. While this system provides more precise movements, it is too expensive to use for most researchers and requires experience to operate, its heavy and large size makes it hard to move as well.…”

DeepXPalm: Tilt and Position Rendering using Palm-worn Haptic Display and CNN-based Tactile Pattern Recognition

“…Many studies have started implementing tactile displays to provide high-fidelity feedback. Tachi et al [1] introduced the concept of a highly immersive and mobile telexistence system TELESAR, which includes an autostereoscopic 3D display for visual feedback, wearable tactile and thermal display. Several wearable haptic devices were suggested to achieve a highly immersive VR experience, with a significant focus on the human fingertips due to the high density of Rapidly Adapting (RA) tactile receptors in this area.…”