Bodies in motion

Abstract

Robotic telepresence systems-videoconferencing systems that allow a remote user to drive around in another locationprovide an alternative to video-mediated communications as a way of interacting over distances. These systems, which are seeing increasing use in business and medical settings, are unique in their ability to grant the remote user the ability to maneuver in a distant location. While this mobility promises increased feelings of "being there" for remote users and thus greater support for task collaboration, whether these promises are borne out, providing benefits in task performance, is un known. To better understand the role that mobility plays in shaping the remote user's sense of presence and its poten tial benefits, we conducted a two-by-two (system mobility: stationary vs. mobile; task demands for mobility: low vs. high) controlled laboratory experiment. We asked participants (N = 40) to collaborate in a construction task with a confed erate via a robotic telepresence system. Our results showed that mobility significantly increased the remote user's feelings of presence, particularly in tasks with high mobility require ments, but decreased task performance. Our findings highlight the positive effects of mobility on feelings of "being there," while illustrating the need to design support for effective use of mobility in high-mobility tasks.

Unwinding Rotations Improves User Comfort with Immersive Telepresence Robots

“…Telepresence, a term originally coined by Minsky [8], means being present in a remote location through technology.To increase the mobility of the user, it is natural to mount a camera and a screen on a mobile robot, often referred to as a telepresence robot. There is evidence that even this kind of simple telepresence robots increase the feeling of presence, the degree of "being there" often measured in VR research [9], of the remote user over a stationary video call [10]. Research has shown multiple uses for robotic telepresence, such as students who otherwise cannot attend lectures [11], [12], social interaction [13], and telemonitoring on the basis of medical consultation [14].…”

Mobile augmented communication for remote collaboration in a physical work context

“…However, the shortcomings of AR tool may be recognised in work situations that require mobility requiring specificity in visual guidance as part of the remote collaboration. The missing sensation of being there can be simulated by having some sort of control over the stream, referred to as telepresence (Gauglitz, Nuernberger, Turk, & Hollerer, 2014bRae, Mutlu, & Takayama, 2014. Telepresence may enable control of the view within the limits of a selected area guided by the remote person, who can also propose a different viewpoint by directing the camera in the desired location (Jo & Hwang, 2013).…”

Stabilized Annotations for Mobile Remote Assistance

“…In this thesis, my focus is on designing systems to enable a remote expert assist a worker in the workplace during a physical task. Even here, the range of possible tasks varies from simple, everyday tasks -like cooking or assembling furniture (Rae et. al., 2014) -, to very sensitive tasks like repairing and maintaining a jet engine, or operating the control board in a power plant.…”