Immersive Commodity Telepresence with the AVATRINA Robot Avatar

Joao Marcos Correia Marques, Patrick Naughton, Jing Chen Peng, Yifan Zhu, James Seungbum Nam, Qianxi Kong, Xuanpu Zhang, Aman Penmetcha, Ruifan Ji, Nairen Fu, Vignesh Ravibaskar, Ryan Yan, Neil Malhotra, Kris Hauser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Immersive robotic avatars have the potential to aid and replace humans in a variety of applications such as telemedicine and search-and-rescue operations, reducing the need for travel and the risk to people working in dangerous environments. Many challenges, such as kinematic differences between people and robots, reduced perceptual feedback, and communication latency, currently limit how well robot avatars can achieve full immersion. This paper presents AVATRINA, a teleoperated robot designed to address some of these concerns and maximize the operator’s capabilities while using a commodity light-weight human–machine interface. Team AVATRINA took 4th place at the recent $10 million ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition, which required contestants to design avatar systems that could be controlled by novice operators to complete various manipulation, navigation, and social interaction tasks. This paper details the components of AVATRINA and the design process that contributed to our success at the competition. We highlight a novel study on one of these components, namely the effects of baseline-interpupillary distance matching and head mobility for immersive stereo vision and hand-eye coordination.

Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalInternational Journal of Social Robotics
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2024
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Haptics
  • Robotics
  • Teleoperation
  • Telepresence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • General Computer Science
  • Social Psychology
  • Philosophy
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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