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Oculus Rift-Based System Brings True Immersion To Telepresence Robots

Posted by samzenpus on from the from-the-comfort-of-your-own-home dept.

An anonymous reader writes: University of Pennsylvania researchers have built an Oculus Rift-based telepresence system that attempts to bring true immersion to remotely operated robots. The system, called DORA (Dexterous Observational Roving Automaton), precisely tracks the motion of your head and then duplicates those motions on a mobile robot moving around at a remote location. Video from the robot's cameras is transmitted to the Oculus headset. One of the creators said that while using the system you "feel like you are transported somewhere else in the real world."

4 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Wouldn't it make more sense... by popo · · Score: 2

    To film an entire "sphere" of video simultaneously, and then have the Oculus (client) display a subset of that data depending on where the user was looking?

    That system would not only involve fewer moving parts, but less movement-related lag. It would also allow multiple simultaneous users to access the vantage point.

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    1. Re:Wouldn't it make more sense... by michelcolman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You could put on three spheres, so that any objects are always visible by at least two of them. Then you can do some processing (quite a lot of processing, actually) to synthesize the images that would have been seen by two cameras at a fixed distance from each other pointing in any particular direction. I'm not saying it's easy, but certainly feasible with today's processing power. And it would result in less lag than actually having to physically move the cameras. Also, multiple people could use the same feed like popo suggested.

      There are obviously some disadvantages, one of them being the much higher bandwidth required to capture 360 degree vision from three cameras in sufficiently high resolution so that a relatively small view window still keeps enough pixels to look good.

      But lag is an extremely important issue if you don't want people to get seasick within minutes of using the device.

    2. Re:Wouldn't it make more sense... by lordofthechia · · Score: 2

      You don't need 360 capture

      Sure you do. What if the user decides to rotate their head 360 degrees in less time than the current latency to the remote system?

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      Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
  2. Honey, I shrunk the kids by renesch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would be fascinating to have such a robot at a tiny scale, and then run around in your garden