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Recent world events have caused a dramatic rise in the use of video conferencing solutions such as Zoom and FaceTime. Although 3D capture and display technologies are becoming common in consumer products (e.g., Apple iPhone TrueDepth sensors, Microsoft Kinect devices, and Meta Quest VR headsets), 3D telecommunication has not yet seen any appreciable adoption. Researchers have made great progress in developing advanced 3D telepresence systems, but often with burdensome hardware and network requirements. In this work, we present HoloKinect, an open-source, user-friendly, and GPU-accelerated platform for enabling live, two-way 3D video conferencing on commodity hardware and a standard broadband internet connection. A Microsoft Azure Kinect serves as the capture device and a Looking Glass Portrait multiscopically displays the final reconstructed 3D mesh for a hologram-like effect. HoloKinect packs color and depth information into a single video stream, leveraging multiwavelength depth (MWD) encoding to store depth maps in standard RGB video frames. The video stream is compressed with highly optimized and hardware-accelerated video codecs such as H.264. A search of the depth and video encoding parameter space was performed to analyze the quantitative and qualitative losses resulting from HoloKinect’s lossy compression scheme. Visual results were acceptable at all tested bitrates (3–30 Mbps), while the best results were achieved with higher video bitrates and full 4:4:4 chroma sampling. RMSE values of the recovered depth measurements were low across all settings permutations.

We propose a scoping review of literature to identify key features in telepresence robot systems that influence the quality of healthcare provided to patients admitted to intensive care units.

Novice users of telesurgery could be limited by their experience and technical ability. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care systems is unprecedented, and telehealth allowed care providers and patients a safety margin. An indirect impact of redeployment of hospital staff during COVID-19 management has been on the reduced educational opportunities for residents. Proximie can be considered as a virtual teaching platform or classroom for any user. Twenty-one students voluntarily participated in utilizing a da Vinci® skills simulator (dVSS) to carry out surgical training simulation tasks. Our study focuses on digital native’s adaptation to utilizing Proximie’s augmented reality platform to direct task performance, to gauge its feasibility by this unique cohort.

The transformative influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on remote forms of communication has been a frequent theme in popular discourse during 2020, but any lingering transformation of what we do at a distance will rely on convincing and accessible forms of remote presence and interaction. Embodied communication is difficult to simulate, and this discussion examines current and emerging extended reality (XR)–based communication tools in a range of contexts to discover what role they may play in a future where crises of mobility are likely to grow more frequent and protracted. We define XR and its current uses, then examine key terms used to conceptualise it such as ‘presence’ and ‘social presence’, before highlighting social challenges of remote presence and ethical considerations that accompany its use, particularly how the technology might (or fail to) address important social problems, support education and have relevance to the future of work.

This paper introduces an emerging motion planning problem by considering a human that is immersed into the viewing perspective of a remote robot. The challenge is to make the experience both effective (such as delivering a sense of presence) and comfortable (such as avoiding adverse sickness symptoms, including nausea). We refer to this challenging new area as human perception-optimized planning and propose a general multiobjective optimization framework that can be instantiated in many envisioned scenarios. We then consider a specific VR telepresence task as a case of human perception-optimized planning, in which we simulate a robot that sends 360 video to a remote user to be viewed through a head-mounted display. In this particular task, we plan trajectories that minimize VR sickness (and thereby maximize comfort). An A* type method is used to create a Pareto-optimal collection of piecewise linear trajectories while taking into account criteria that improve comfort. We conducted a study with human subjects touring a virtual museum, in which paths computed by our algorithm are compared against a reference RRT-based trajectory. Generally, users suffered less from VR sickness and preferred the paths created by the presented algorithm., Accepted for publication in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)

We propose unwinding the rotations experienced by the user of an immersive telepresence robot to improve comfort and reduce VR sickness of the user. By immersive telepresence we refer to a situation where a 360\textdegree~camera on top of a mobile robot is streaming video and audio into a head-mounted display worn by a remote user possibly far away. Thus, it enables the user to be present at the robot's location, look around by turning the head and communicate with people near the robot. By unwinding the rotations of the camera frame, the user's viewpoint is not changed when the robot rotates. The user can change her viewpoint only by physically rotating in her local setting; as visual rotation without the corresponding vestibular stimulation is a major source of VR sickness, physical rotation by the user is expected to reduce VR sickness. We implemented unwinding the rotations for a simulated robot traversing a virtual environment and ran a user study (N=34) comparing unwinding rotations to user's viewpoint turning when the robot turns. Our results show that the users found unwound rotations more preferable and comfortable and that it reduced their level of VR sickness. We also present further results about the users' path integration capabilities, viewing directions, and subjective observations of the robot's speed and distances to simulated people and objects., Accepted for publication in HRI (Int. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction) 2022

Background: Over the last few decades, telepresence robots (TRs) have drawn significant attention in academic and healthcare systems due to their enormous benefits, including safety improvement, remote access and economics, reduced traffic congestion, and greater mobility. COVID-19 and advancements in the military play a vital role in developing TRs. Since then, research on the advancement of robots has been attracting much attention. Methods: In critical areas, the placement and movement of humans are not safe, and researchers have started looking at the development of robots. Robot development includes many parameters to be analyzed, and trajectory planning and optimization are among them. The main objective of this study is to present a trajectory control and optimization algorithm for a cognitive architecture named auto-MERLIN. Optimization algorithms are developed for trajectory control. Results: The derived work empirically tests the solutions and provides execution details for creating the trajectory design. We develop the trajectory algorithm for the clockwise direction and another one for the clockwise and counterclockwise directions. Conclusions: Experimental results are drawn to support the proposed algorithm. Self-localization, self-driving, and right and left turn trajectories are drawn. All of the experimental results show that the designed TR works properly, with better accuracy and only a slight jitter in the orientation. The jitter is found due to the environmental factor caught by the sensors, which can be filtered easily. The results show that the proposed approach is less complex and provides better trajectory planning accuracy.

Many older adults remain sedentary because they do not have access to specialized facilities or adapted physical activity (APA) teachers. To solve this health issue, mobile telepresence robots (MTRs) could allow APA sessions to be supervised by a teacher from a distant location. However, their acceptance has never been investigated in the context of APA. A sample of 230 French older adults filled out a questionnaire assessing the variables of the Technology Acceptance Model and their expectations for aging. The results showed that the more the older adults found the MTR useful, easy to use, enjoyable, and recommended by their entourage, the more they intended to use it. Moreover, older adults who expected higher health-related quality of life with aging are those who found the MTR more useful. Finally, older adults significantly found the MTR useful, easy to use, and pleasant to use for remote supervision of their physical activity.

Background: The development of telepresence robots is getting much attention in various areas of human–robot interaction, healthcare systems and military applications because of multiple advantages such as safety improvement, lower energy and fuel consumption, exploitation of road networks, reduced traffic congestion and greater mobility. Methods: In the critical decision-making process during the motion of a robot, intelligent motion planning takes an important and challenging role. It includes obstacle avoidance, searching for the safest path to follow, generating appropriate behavior and comfortable trajectory generation by optimization while keeping road boundaries and traffic rules as important concerns. Results: This paper presents a state machine algorithm for avoiding obstacles and speed control design to a cognitive architecture named auto-MERLIN. This research empirically tested the proposed solutions by providing implementation details and diagrams for establishing the path planning and obstacle tests. Conclusions: The results validate the usability of our approach and show auto-MERLIN as a ready robot for short- and long-term tasks, showing better results than using a default system, particularly when deployed in highly interactive scenarios. The stable speed control of the auto-MERLIN in case of detecting any obstacle was shown.

Social isolation has been a significant issue in aged care settings, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is associated with adverse outcomes, including loneliness, depression, and cognitive decline. While robotic assistance may help mitigate social isolation, it would be helpful to know how to adopt technology in aged care. This scoping review aims to explore facilitators and barriers to the implementation of telepresence robots in aged care settings. Following the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methodology and the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews reporting guidelines, we searched relevant peer-reviewed studies through eight databases: CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane, PsychINFO (EBSCO), Web of Science, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library. Google was used to search gray literature, including descriptive, evaluative, quantitative, and qualitative designs. Eligibility includes: studies with people aged 65 years and older who interacted with a telepresence robot in a care setting, and articles written in English. We conducted a thematic analysis to summarize the evidence based on the constructs in the Consolidated Framework of Implementation Research. Of 1183 articles retrieved, 13 were included in the final review. The analysis yielded three themes: relative advantages, perceived risks and problems, and contextual considerations. The key facilitators to telepresence robot adoption are as follows: a feeling of physical presence, ease of use, mobility, and training. The barriers to implementation are as follows: cost, privacy issues, internet connectivity, and workflow. Future research should investigate the role of leadership support in implementation and practical strategies to overcome barriers to technology adoption in aged care settings.

The use of virtual reality as a safety training technology is gaining attention in the construction industry. While current studies focus mainly on the development of VR-based safety training programs, studies focusing on improving its effectiveness is still lacking. Thus, this study aims to understand the psychological process of training transfer and determine the factors that affect VR safety training effectiveness. The study analysed survey data from 248 construction workers who finished construction safety training using VR using PLS-SEM. The results show that the telepresence experienced through the VR and the risk perception of the trainees regarding occupational accidents significantly affect their satisfaction with VR safety training, which affected its effectiveness. Considering that the use of VR in the construction safety training context is still in its early stages, the results of our study, which comprehensively analyses both the technological and psychological aspects of VR safety training, could provide meaningful implications to VR training content developers. Furthermore, the theoretical approach of our study could be implemented in future studies focusing on the topic of training effectiveness.

Virtual reality spectatorship (VRS) is receiving the limelight as a new form of sports media consumption in the sports industry, but prolonged exposure to the virtual reality (VR) environment is likely to reduce the benefits of VR due to satiation or adaptation. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the experiential differences in telepresence, flow experience, and satisfaction between a two-dimensional (2D) screen, VRS without interruptions, and VRS with interruptions. For this purpose, 150 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. They watched a 12-min-long soccer game and then answered the measurement items. A total of 149 participants were used for the data analyses, including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that VRS offers more enhanced telepresence, flow experience, and satisfaction than a 2D screen. Furthermore, flow experience was enhanced in VRS with interruptions compared to VRS without interruptions. Lastly, satisfaction was found to increase depending on time lapses in VRS with interruptions. The experiential patterns in VRS depending on interruptions and time lapses imply that inserting interruptions such as commercials could be not only beneficial for viewing experiences but also effective practice for increasing revenue from advertising.

Due to an increase in the number of disabled people around the world, inclusive solutions are becoming a priority. People with disabilities may encounter many problems and may not be able to easily participate in various activities due to physical barriers, which may sometimes cause them to be frustrated and embarrassed. Recently, the emerging telepresence robot technology has been proposed to enable people with disabilities to increase their presence by incorporating information and communications technology (ICT) into robotics platforms. Therefore, in this paper we conduct a comprehensive analysis using comparative and elicitation studies to understand the current state of mobile telepresence robot systems and to identify the gaps that must be filled. This paper further contributes to the literature by proposing a novel telepresence robot system that adapts text-to-speech (TTS) and ICT technologies with robotics for its use as an assistant. To the authors’ knowledge, the proposed system is the first MRP system that supports speech impairment and introduces emotion components into its communication function. It includes an operator site (mobile) and a remote site (robot) to allow users to control the robot from a distance and communicate with others in remote locations. It allows the user to physically interact with people and show certain emotions through the robot in remote locations, or it can accompany them to speak on their behalf. It can provide agency for both remote and in-class users through emoji-based communication and audio–video streaming with recording functionality. As shown at the end of this paper, the system was tested with 30 people, some of whom had mobility or speech disabilities, showing that the user acceptance score was above 95% and that people with disabilities liked to interact with other people using the proposed system. The users appreciated having the ability to control the robot from a distance and praised the capability to show their emotions through the robot emoji motions and to control the audio–video streaming. From this study, we conclude that the proposed telepresence system could be an asset to people with speech and mobility disabilities and could help them feel physically present in various places.

With virtual reality (VR) video game users beginning to see beta advertisements within game play, this conceptual article adds a needed digital and interactive marketing research foundation to the new construct of VR in-game advertising (IGA) activation. New consumer VR technology continues to disrupt traditional media as a $7.7 billion USD industry, that is expected to reach $57.55 billion by 2027. As such, marketing researchers must continue to evolve and understand the interdisciplinary VR research evolution as many VR users are likely to view IGA as intrusive. IGA and VR are not new constructs, but IGA within VR is unique as VR consumers have not yet experienced VR IGA intrusion. This article utilizes a sport marketing focus to provide an industry specific set of examples for the reader, however this article can be applied to broader fields including communications and interactive marketing. The main contributions of this article are 2-fold. First the development of a VR In-Game Advertising Congruity Framework is developed through a review of the literature and application to VR IGA in the topical areas of congruity of the IGA, interactivity of the IGA, intrusiveness of the IGA, realism of the experience, telepresence, brand awareness, and attitude toward the IGA. Secondly, a proper VR context definition of telepresence is provided through review of the literature that takes into account the interaction of a VR participant. This article aims to aid marketers in making informed IGA development decisions through strategic choice, via a centralized VR IGA congruity framework, that not only enhances brand awareness, but leaves participants with a favorable attitude toward the IGA to increase sales activation.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the market size of extended reality (XR), a blanket term comprising augmented, virtual, and augmented reality (AR/VR/MR), is estimated to grow to 30.4 billion USD by 2027 from an estimated 1.56 billion USD (1). This simple figure outlines more succinctly than any literary review the explosive growth of XR in the healthcare sector. With XR being only one vista in the whole landscape of immersive media in connected health, the scope of this research study becomes readily apparent. Medical image fusion, educational immersive visualizations, web-based virtual scenarios, and XR interventions for mental and physical health are all parts of the research ecosystem of this topic. This special issue aims at contemporary immersive media research study as it pertains to healthcare. From the whole spectrum of XR to a diverse landscape of image processing and fusion, educational simulations, and technical/usability issues in proliferating immersive media in the whole connected healthcare ecosystem, this special issue aims to explore both the technologies of immersive media and their impact on contemporary healthcare. On the educational front, virtual patients (VPs), with current web-based rapid development and deployment cycles, are ubiquitously present in the healthcare curricula. Meaningfully combining immersive three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments with VPs leads medical training to new aspects of open social learning. Learners can absorb educational content at their own pace and engage in an experiential way and not only feel the presence but also affect the sense of presence in the training event (2). Developing such resources and repurposing them for virtual reality (VR) are a rather straightforward task, that is, one, however, that must adhere to sound game-informed design principles and narrative techniques to achieve measurable impact both in learning outcomes and engagement (3). However, education is not the only healthcare field that XR applies. Preoperative surgical planning using mixed reality (4) and 3D prints for patient-specific surgical approaches are proliferating (5). Haptic controls in conjunction with XR visualization and novel medical image co-registration and fusion are becoming common practices in surgical training and preoperative preparation. Beyond “hard” medicine applications, the whole spectrum of immersive health is benefited through healthcare interventions. The general public and targeted sensitive groups of people are benefiting from physical and mental wellness interventions based on immersive media such as XR, m-health, or even virtual environment ecosystems (6).

In recent decades, China has transformed from a conventional society into a digitally competitive nation. From an economic perspective, embedded corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining a new height where gamified charity is a trendy approach. By adopting the norm activation model from the point of view of the stimulus–organism–response framework, this research theoretically conceptualized the role of the mobile application environment (including telepresence, functional transparency, and accessibility) to map the cognition and philanthropic behavioral intentions of consumers in the gamified setting. The quantified survey comprised 669 respondents. The findings highlighted the critical role of functional transparency and telepresence of a mobile application in driving consumers’ warm glow and ascribed responsibility. The research underlined the presence of the unique DNA of Internet Plus Charity (Public Benefits) for prosocial and pro-environmental purposes in China under the umbrella of philanthropic CSR.

Aim: The telepresence technology is the next best thing to being there in person as though sitting together at the same table instead of separated by distances. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effectiveness of telepresence technology on medical students’ success as an alternative teaching method comparing with face-to-face teaching method in the pathology course.Methods: A quantitative method was used in this study with ( totally N 93) 53 students for the Face-to-Face Teaching Group and 40 students for the Telepresence Teaching Group were used. Measurements were done by “End of Subject Test” and” Final Exam” and repeat times of videos were recorded. The data were analyzed by ANCOVA, one-way ANOVA, Bonferroni correction test, correlation and students’ t test. Results: When End of Subject Test grades was analyzed, the average of the Face-to-Face Teaching Group’s average points was 12,86 points higher than the Telepresence Teaching Group’s average points. For the Final Exam, the average points of the Face-to-Face Teaching Group were 1,12 points higher than average points of Telepresence Teaching Group. When course repeat times were analyzed it was seen that the Telepresence Teaching Group had spent 19,75 minutes more than the Face-to-Face Teaching Group and have an improving effect on both groups students’ success. And correlation analysis showed that 32,5 % of the success of Telepresence Teaching Group and 28,6 % of the success of Face-to-Face Teaching Group result from course video repetition.Conclusions: The outcomes show no statistical difference between success rates and retention of medical students having courses face-to-face and via telepresence method. And it was seen that “repeat times” had a significant effect on student success.

This study explores whether using immersive virtual reality technology (iVR) in a virtual simulated store (VSS) enhances perceived telepresence and usability compared to conventional desktop technology. Two experiments were carried out in a between-groups methodological design that involved a total of 111 participants who completed a simulated shopping trip. In the first experiment a conventional desktop computer setup was used to create the VSS using mouse and keyboard for navigation. The second experiment used iVR. 1 1Immersive virtual reality. technology including a head-mounted display, body-tracking sensors, and hand-held motion-tracked controllers, which enabled navigation via body movement in a walk-around iVR environment. Participants purchased grocery items within each VSS. 2 2Virtual simulated store. environment, and post-hoc measures of perceived telepresence and usability ratings were compared. Results showed that participants in the iVR group experienced stronger feelings of immersion and perceived naturalness of interactions with the store environment compared to the desktop group. Both factors potentially lead to enhanced perceived telepresence. However, the visual realism of virtual products and the grasping interface for iVR control of product inspection could be further enhanced by advances in iVR technology. This study has implications for food marketing research as the use of immersive iVR can potentially lead to more naturalistic shopping behaviour in VSSs. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Presentation for the 2021 International Communication Association Conference. Together with Tilburg University and Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, we investigated if and how telepresence robots affect between-student cooperation. Telepresence robots are robots that absent students can communicate through in the classroom.

This paper describes an ongoing research project which explores the design and use of inexpensive robotics, artificial intelligence techniques, and human–computer interaction methods, to enrich assisted living environments. Such environments provide help to the inhabitants of a home or office, assisting them to perform daily activities, helping them to socialize and interact with others, and to provide enhanced levels of security and safeness. We present the development of an inexpensive robotic solution to help people with disabilities and/or older adults to perform their daily activities. It can be used as a remote controlled surveillance system, and also as a personal assistant. It is able to recognize each inhabitant, his/her emotions, and detect abnormal situations such as falls and health problems. The whole system is designed to operate solely within a local network and special attention is given to the privacy and data protection of the users. authorsversion published

Telepresence robots are becoming popular in social interactions involving health care, elderly assistance, guidance, or office meetings. There are two types of human psychological experiences to consider in robot-mediated interactions: (1) telepresence, in which a user develops a sense of being present near the remote interlocutor, and (2) co-presence, in which a user perceives the other person as being present locally with him or her. This work presents a literature review on developments supporting robotic social interactions, contributing to improving the sense of presence and co-presence via robot mediation. This survey aims to define social presence, co-presence, identify autonomous “user-adaptive systems” for social robots, and propose a taxonomy for “co-presence” mechanisms. It presents an overview of social robotics systems, applications areas, and technical methods and provides directions for telepresence and co-presence robot design given the actual and future challenges. Finally, we suggest evaluation guidelines for these systems, having as reference face-to-face interaction.

In recent years, everyday activities such as work and socialization have steadily shifted to more remote and virtual settings. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the switch from physical to virtual has been accelerated, which has substantially affected almost all aspects of our lives, including business, education, commerce, healthcare, and personal life. This rapid and large-scale switch from in-person to remote interactions has exacerbated the fact that our current technologies lack functionality and are limited in their ability to recreate interpersonal interactions. To help address these limitations in the future, we introduce “Telelife,” a vision for the near and far future that depicts the potential means to improve remote living and better align it with how we interact, live and work in the physical world. Telelife encompasses novel synergies of technologies and concepts such as digital twins, virtual/physical rapid prototyping, and attention and context-aware user interfaces with innovative hardware that can support ultrarealistic graphics and haptic feedback, user state detection, and more. These ideas will guide the transformation of our daily lives and routines soon, targeting the year 2035. In addition, we identify opportunities across high-impact applications in domains related to this vision of Telelife. Along with a recent survey of relevant fields such as human-computer interaction, pervasive computing, and virtual reality, we provide a meta-synthesis in this paper that will guide future research on remote living.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. This research paper proposes a low-cost telepresence technological model focused on primary education. Its aim is to give students a new resource/communication channel for classes, which would be used when they cannot attend school due to health problems that do not affect their learning process. This solution seeks students to not be passive listeners during a session, but that they interact with their classmates and teachers during class. To validate the model, a telepresence platform based on WebRTC was developed. It was tested in three schools in different geographical areas belonging to socioeconomic sector C, collecting data from the students who tested the tool, as well as from classmates, teachers, and parents. Revisión por pares

Sensors and human machine interfaces for collaborative robotics will allow smooth interaction in contexts ranging from industry to tele-medicine and rescue. This paper introduces a bidirectional communication system to achieve multisensory telepresence during the gestural control of an industrial robotic arm. Force and motion from the robot are converted in neuromorphic haptic stimuli delivered on the user's hand through a vibro-tactile glove. Untrained personnel participated in an experimental task benchmarking a pick-and-place operation. The robot end-effector was used to sequentially press six buttons, illuminated according to a random sequence, and comparing the tasks executed without and with tactile feedback. The results demonstrated the reliability of the hand tracking strategy developed for controlling the robotic arm, and the effectiveness of a neuronal spiking model for encoding hand displacement and exerted forces in order to promote a fluid embodiment of the haptic interface and control strategy. The main contribution of this paper is in presenting a robotic arm under gesture-based remote control with multisensory telepresence, demonstrating for the first time that a spiking haptic interface can be used to effectively deliver on the skin surface a sequence of stimuli emulating the neural code of the mechanoreceptors beneath.

Remote assistance represents an important use case for mixed reality. With the rise of handheld and wearable devices, remote assistance has become practical in the wild. However, spontaneous provisioning of remote assistance requires an easy, fast and robust approach for capturing and sharing of unprepared environments. In this work, we make a case for utilizing interactive light fields for remote assistance. We demonstrate the advantages of object representation using light fields over conventional geometric reconstruction. Moreover, we introduce an interaction method for quickly annotating light fields in 3D space without requiring surface geometry to anchor annotations. We present results from a user study demonstrating the effectiveness of our interaction techniques, and we provide feedback on the usability of our overall system. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This study seeks to identify potential advantages of using holographic videoconferencing to deliver seminars within higher education as compared to the use of alternative non-holographic videoconferencing. Holographic videoconferencing offers opportunities to enhance attendees’ experience of remotely delivered seminars but has not been widely researched. Data were collected from 127 attendees attending one of three seminars, each of which featured a combination of physically present presenters and remote presenters participating via holographic videoconferencing. In this study, the holographic representations were three-dimensional and life-size. Monitors and holographic images were calibrated in a manner such that the remote presenters were able to point to and achieve eye-contact with members of the audience. Results indicate that the use of holographic videoconferencing can enhance the teaching presence of remote presenters, the engagement between participants and attendees’ enjoyment of a seminar. Almost all participants reported this to be their first experience of a holographic event and the positive results are partly explained by a sense of novelty. This suggests that the benefits of holographic videoconferencing may reduce over time. However, we argue that some benefit, resulting from an enhanced degree of teaching presence, will be sustained. The relative impact on learning gain is not explored in the current study. We believe that this would likely require a more controlled experiment in future research.

This paper introduces a real-time 3D reconstruction of a human captured using a depth sensor and has integrated it with a holographic telepresence application. Holographic projection is widely recognized as one of the most promising 3D display technologies, and it is expected to become more widely available in the near future. This technology may also be deployed in various ways, including holographic prisms and Z-Hologram, which this research has used to demonstrate the initial results by displaying the reconstructed 3D representation of the user. The realization of a stable and inexpensive 3D data acquisition system is a problem that has yet to be solved. When we involve multiple sensors we need to compress and optimize the data so that it can be sent to a server for a telepresence. Therefore the paper presents the processes in real-time 3D reconstruction, which consists of data acquisition, background removal, point cloud extraction, and a surface generation which applies a marching cube algorithm to finally form an isosurface from the set of points in the point cloud which later texture mapping is applied on the isosurface generated. The compression results has been presented in this paper, and the results of the integration process after sending the data over the network also have been discussed.

Decision-making during a crisis is affected by several sources of information and prior knowledge, such as factual (statistical) information, narratives of others, and real-time governmental messages. The present study investigated how two types of information (statistics and narratives) influence helping behavior after the occurrence of a traffic accident. We used a scripted crisis scenario in a virtual environment, where several types of behavior could be measured. The main dependent variable was whether participants would move the victim or not. By moving the victim, he would be rescued from a potentially unsafe position (the tilted truck could contain poisonous substances), but moving also entailed a risk of increased injury (according to the statistical information the most likely consequence). Our results indicate that more victims were moved in the narrative condition before an official message was received. Participants who had received statistical information or both types of information performed similar to the control condition. After the official message, informing participants to keep distance, more victims were moved in the narrative condition and in the combined narrative and statistical condition. A narrative therefore has stronger effects when (information about) the actual situation matches the narrative’s content. In contrast with our expectations, affective response did not mediate the relationship between narrative information and moving victims. An alternative explanation would be that narratives trigger a more heuristic way of information processing.

The ultimate long-term goal in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is to design robots that can act as a natural extension to humans. This requires the design of robot control architectures to provide structure for the integration of the necessary components into HRI. This paper describes how HBBA, a Hybrid Behavior-Based Architecture, can be used as a unifying framework for integrated design of HRI scenarios. More specifically, we focus here on HBBA’s generic coordination mechanism of behavior-producing modules, which allows to address a wide range or cognitive capabilities ranging from assisted teleoperation to selective attention and episodic memory. Using IRL-1, a humanoid robot equipped with compliant actuators for motion and manipulation, proximity sensors, cameras and a microphone array, three interaction scenarios are implemented: multi-modal teleoperation with physical guidance interaction, fetching-and delivering and tour-guiding.

In this paper we present a context-aware immersive teleoperation interface to assist operators during navigation tasks. This new interface strategy aims to address the problems associated with mental overload, often experienced by operators of teleoperated devices. Our approach simplifies the high complexity of information displayed in control rooms. Our approach includes a context-based human-robot interaction framework that detects relevant information and automatically adapts the displayed interface in virtual windshield. Results showed that the proposed approach enhances user immersion while maximizes task performances and minimizes the operator physical and cognitive workload., 22o Encontro Português de Computação Gráfica e Interação 2015, Posters, 150, 162, João Quintas, Luís Almeida, Elísio Sousa, Paulo Menezes, Human-Robot Interaction, Telepresence, Embodiment

Introduction In Germany, improvement of quality of care is associated with improvement of health and longevity but threatened in several dimensions by economic and demographic trends. In offshore wind parks, these threats are particularly tangible with an already large gap of emergency medical care. Telemedicine may be an approach to a solution. In Landgraf et al. [1] we reported on the effect of telemedical support on the first subprocess of emergency first response. Methods In simulated, identical wind power plants, teams of two medical non-professionals (offshore maintenance engineers) and teams of two medical professionals (paramedics) faced a simulated polytraumatized patient in a simulated offshore emergency scenario. The teams were random- ized into independent groups (intervention versus no intervention). Teams in the intervention groups were telemedically supported by transmission technology with connection to a remote physician. All teams were to conduct a primary survey of the patient. Using videorecordings, reviewers scored their itemized performance and required time. These scores and times were explored for effects of expertise and telemedical support, culminating in a non-inferiority trial of supported medical non-professionals against unsupported medical professionals. Results 36 offshore engineers in teams of two staffed 18, 34 paramedics in teams of two staffed 17 simulated, identical wind power plants. After randomization, nine teams of two engineers as well as nine teams of two paramedics were telemedically supported, leaving nine teams of two engineers as well as eight teams of two paramedics unsupported. Supported engineers’ performance was better than that by unsupported engineers (p < .01) and non-inferior (at one item margin) to that by unsupported paramedics (p = .03). The difference between supported and unsupported paramedics was not significant (p = .11). “Without support, paramedics outperformed engineers (p < .01). Supported groups were slower than unsupported groups (p < .01)” [1]. Conclusion “First response to medical emergencies in offshore wind farms with substantially delayed professional care may be improved by telemedical support. Future work should test our result during additional scenarios and explore interdisciplinary” [1] as well as systemic aspects., In Deutschland wird eine Verbesserung der medizinischen Versorgungsqualität mit einer Verbesserung von Gesundheit und Langlebigkeit assoziiert. Sie wird allerdings durch ökonomische und demographische Entwicklungen gefährdet. In Offshore-Windparks sind diese Gefahren besonders greifbar, da bereits eine groSSe Lücke in der medizinischen Notfallversorgung besteht. Telemedizin könnte einen Lösungsansatz darstellen. In Landgraf et al. [1] haben wir über die Auswirkung telemedizinischer Unterstützung auf den ersten Teilprozess der Erstreaktion im Notfall berichtet. Methoden In simulierten, identischen Windkraftanlagen wurden Teams von zwei medizinischen Laien (Offshore-Wartungsingenieure) und Teams von zwei medizinischen Fachleuten (Rettungsassistenten) in einem simulierten Offshore-Notfallszenario mit einem simulierten, polytraumatisierten Patienten konfrontiert. Die Teams wurden nach dem Zufallsprinzip in unabhängige Gruppen eingeteilt (Intervention versus keine Intervention). Die Teams in den Interventionsgruppen wurden telemedizinisch durch Übertragungstechnik mit Verbindung zu einem entfernten Arzt unterstützt. Alle Teams sollten eine Primärbefragung des Patienten durchführen. Mithilfe von Videoaufzeichnungen bewerteten Rezensenten ihre in Einheiten aufgegliederte Leistung sowie benötigte Zeit. Diese Leistungswerte und Zeiten wurden auf Auswirkungen von Fachwissen und telemedizinischer Unterstützung untersucht. Kern der Untersuchung war eine Nichtunterlegenheitsprüfung von unterstützten medizinischen Laien gegenüber nicht unterstützten medizinischen Fachkräften. Ergebnisse 36 Offshore-Ingenieure in Zweierteams besetzten 18, 34 Rettungsassistenten in Zweierteams besetzten 17 simulierte, identische Windkraftanlagen. Nach Randomisierung wurden neun Ingenieurteams sowie neun Rettungsassistententeams telemedizinisch unterstützt, sodass neun Ingenieurteams sowie acht Rettungsassistententeams nicht unterstützt wurden. Die Leistung der unterstützten Ingenieure war besser als die der nicht unterstützten Ingenieure (p < 0.01) und derjenigen von nicht unterstützten Rettungsassistenten (bei einer Unterlegenheitsschwelle von einem Leistungspunkt) nicht unterlegen (p = 0.03). Der Unterschied zwischen unterstützten und nicht unterstützten Rettungsassistenten war nicht signifikant (p = 0.11). Ohne Unterstützung haben Rettungsassistenten Ingenieure übertroffen (p < 0.01). Unterstützte Gruppen waren langsamer als nicht unterstützte Gruppen (p < 0.01) [1]. Fazit Die erste Reaktion auf medizinische Notfälle in Offshore-Windparks mit erheblich verzögerter professioneller Hilfe kann durch telemedizinische Unterstützung verbessert werden. Zukünftige Arbeiten sollten unser Ergebnis in zusätzlichen Szenarien testen und interdisziplinäre sowie systemische Aspekte untersuchen [1].

International audience; Walking is an essential activity for a healthy life, which becomes less tiring and more enjoyable if done together. Common difficulties we have in performing sufficient physical exercise, for instance the lack of motivation, can be overcome by exploiting its social aspect. However, our lifestyle sometimes makes it very difficult to find time together with others who live far away from us to go for a walk. In this paper we propose a novel system enabling people to have a 'remote social walk' by streaming the gait cadence between two persons walking in different places, increasing the sense of mutual presence. Vibrations provided at the users' ankles display the partner's sensation perceived during the heel-strike. In order to achieve the aforementioned goal in a two users experiment, we envisaged a four-step incremental validation process: i) a single walker has to adapt the cadence with a virtual reference generated by a software; ii) a single user is tasked to follow a predefined time-varying gait cadence; iii) a leader-follower scenario in which the haptic actuation is mono-directional; iv) a peer-to-peer case with bi-directional haptic communication. Careful experimental validation was conducted involving a total of 50 participants, which confirmed the efficacy of our system in perceiving the partners' gait cadence in each of the proposed scenarios.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate, in a simulator-based prospective study, whether telemedical support improves quality of emergency first response (performance) by medical non-professionals to being non-inferior to medical professionals. SETTING: In a simulated offshore wind power plant, duos (teams) of offshore engineers and teams of paramedics conducted the primary survey of a simulated patient. PARTICIPANTS: 38 offshore engineers and 34 paramedics were recruited by the general email invitation. INTERVENTION: Teams (randomised by lot) were supported by transmission technology and a remote emergency physician in Berlin. OUTCOME MEASURES: From video recordings, performance (17 item checklist) and required time (up to 15 min) were quantified by expert rating for analysis. Differences were analysed using two-sided exact Mann-Whitney U tests for independent measures, non-inferiority was analysed using Schuirmann one-sided test. The significance level of 5 % was Holm-Bonferroni adjusted in each family of pairwise comparisons. RESULTS: Nine teams of engineers with, nine without, nine teams of paramedics with and eight without support completed the task. Two experts quantified endpoints, insights into rater dependence were gained. Supported engineers outperformed unsupported engineers (p

The possibility of performing remote-surgery has been the goal to achieve, since the early development of the first surgical robotic platforms. This systematic review aims to analyse the state of the art in the field and to provide an overview of the possible growth of this technology. All English language publications on Telementoring and Telesurgery for minimally invasive urologic procedures were evaluated. We followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses) statement to evaluate PubMed®, Scopus®, and Web of Science™ databases (up to June 2019). Our electronic search identified a total of 124 papers in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Of these, 81 publications were identified for detailed review, which yielded 22 included in the present systematic review. Our results showed that remote surgery has been under-utilised until today, mostly due to the lack of appropriate telecommunication technologies. Remote live surgery is a growing technology that is catalyzing incremental interest. Despite not being yet reliable today on a regular basis in its most advanced applications, thanks to the advent of novel data-transmission technologies, telepresence might become a critical educational methodology, highly impacting the global healthcare system

Technological advancements in the development of autonomous vehicles have been focusing on the very fundamental issues such as functionality and safety. On the other hand, design researchers have started to explore possible everyday life interactions between people and automated vehicles, as well as probing the acceptance of such a disruptive technology by people and the emergence of trust from humans towards such cars. In this paper, I speculate on the possibility that autonomous driving might enable new human-to-human relationships. Departing from the Co-Drive concept, which envisions a new way of travelling and socializing inside the car by sharing a car trip with a remote virtual companion, I focus on the design challenges into the creation of one’s own virtual avatar who inhabits the car as the remote passenger and I draw possible design approaches into the construction of a (virtual) self-representation from the philosophy of mind.

LightBee is a novel “hologrammatic” telepresence system featuring a self-levitating light field display. It consists of a drone that flies a projection of a remote user’s head through 3D space. The movements of the drone are controlled by the remote user’s head movements, offering unique support for non-verbal cues, especially physical proxemics. The light field display is created by a retro-reflective sheet that is mounted on the cylindrical quadcopter. 45 smart projectors, one per 1.3 degrees, are mounted in a ring, each projecting a video stream rendered from a unique perspective onto the retroreflector. This creates a light field that naturally provides motion parallax and stereoscopy without requiring any headset nor stereo glasses. LightBee allows multiple local users to experience their own unique and correct perspective of the remote user’s head. The system is currently one-directional: 2 small cameras mounted on the drone allow the remote user to observe the local scene.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread challenges and revealed vulnerabilities across global health care systems. In response, many health care providers turned to telehealth solutions, which have been widely embraced and are likely to become standard for modern care. Immersive extended reality (XR) technologies have the potential to enhance telehealth with greater acceptability, engagement, and presence. However, numerous technical, logistic, and clinical barriers remain to the incorporation of XR technology into telehealth practice. COVID-19 may accelerate the union of XR and telehealth as researchers explore novel solutions to close social distances. In this viewpoint, we highlight research demonstrations of XR telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss future directions to make XR the next evolution of remote health care.

Remote mixed reality (MR) collaboration systems allow for multimodal, real-time support from remote experts. We present our open toolkit that provides a flexible end-to-end solution for building such systems using off-the-shelf hardware. From related work, three core design aspects have been identified: 1) the independence of the viewpoint that the visitor (the remote expert) can take in relation to position and viewpoint of the visitee, 2) the immersiveness of the presentation technology for visitor and visitee, and 3) the extent to which the visitor's body is represented in the visitee's environment. This paper describes the implementation of our system, which includes these aspects. In a study aimed at validating whether we implemented these core aspects to good effect, conducted with a collaborative puzzle application built with our toolkit, we examine how variations of these aspects contribute to usability, performance and social presence related metrics.

This article introduces a new communicational format called Fair Proxy Communication. Fair Proxy Communication is a specific communicational setting in which a teleoperated robot is used to remove perceptual cues of implicit biases in order to increase the perceived fairness of decision-related communications. The envisaged practical applications of Fair Proxy Communication range from assessment communication (e.g. job interviews at Affirmative Action Employers) to conflict mediation, negotiation and other communication scenarios that require direct dialogue but where decision-making maybe negatively affected by implicit social biases. The theoretical significance of Fair Proxy Communication pertains primarily to the investigation of 'mechanisms' of implicit social cognition in neuropsychology, but this new communicational format also raises many research questions for the fields of organisational psychology, negotiation and conflict research and business ethics. Fair Proxy Communication is currently investigated by an interdisciplinary research team at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Pulse63 is a live streaming and projection mapping installation at architectural scale developed for Moogfest 2018, in Durham, NC. The project explores the relationship between telepresence and "superarchitecture". This paper will consider the artistic aspects of these terms through the work of Eduardo Kac, Pipilotti Rist, Doug Aitken, and others. The intent is to create a visual installation at Moogfest that works as a monolithic visual signifier by applying artistically mediated telepresence and "superarchitecture." Master of Fine Arts

For telepresence to support the richness of multiparty conversations, it is important to convey motion parallax and stereoscopy without head-worn apparatus. TeleHuman2 is a "hologrammatic" telepresence system that conveys fullbody 3D video of interlocutors using a human-sized cylindrical light field display. For rendering, the system uses an array of projectors mounted above the heads of participants in a ring around a retroreflective cylinder. Unique angular renditions are calculated from streaming depth video captured at the remote location. Projected images are retro-reflected into the eyes of local participants, at 1.3° intervals providing angular renditions simultaneously for left and right eyes of all onlookers, which conveys motion parallax and stereoscopy without head-worn apparatus or head tracking. Our technical evaluation of the angular accuracy of the system demonstrates that the error in judging the angle of a remote arrow object represented in TeleHuman2 is within 1 degree, and not significantly different from similar judgments of a collocated arrow object.

Drawing on the media archaeology accounts of "Illusions in Motion" by Erkki Huhtamo (2013), this paper will compare and discuss audience participation in three specific self-view artworks involving interacting public audiences captured and presented in live telepresent film and video performances since 1900. This comparative study will draw out an underlying cultural fixation and amusement with the self-image, analogous to Henri Bergson's understanding of laughter in meaning of the comic (1900). These case studies will include my own artistic practice that focuses on telematic encounters and shared visual dialogues between public audiences linked via Internet videoconferencing in "Peoples Screen", in collaboration with Charlotte Gould for the Guangzhou Light Festival in 2015. The seminal live satellite public performance "Hole-in-Space" by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz in 1980, providing the passing public in New York and Los Angeles with opportunity to converse, co-create and play in the first live public connection of its kind. Lastly, they include Mitchell and Kenyon's historic films of Edwardian public crowds in the 1900s, allowing audiences the opportunity to play and perform in front of the film camera in the knowledge they could watch their spectacle in its screening at the local traveling fairground. In all these cultural events the audiences become both performers and viewers by creating an improvised response to the camera and screen. The striking similarity with the way audiences react and perform comical narratives from these early self-view film screenings to telematic performances possess all the unique traits of telepresent interaction and the selfie phenomenon.

Robotic telepresence aims to create a physical presence for a remotely located human (teleoperator) by reproducing their verbal and nonverbal behaviours (e.g. speech, gestures, facial expressions) on a robotic platform. In this work, we propose a novel teleoperation system that combines the replication of facial expressions of emotions (neutral, disgust, happiness, and surprise) and head movements on the fly on the humanoid robot Nao. Robots' expression of emotions is constrained by their physical and behavioural capabilities. As the Nao robot has a static face, we use the LEDs located around its eyes to reproduce the teleoperator expressions of emotions. Using a web camera, we computationally detect the facial action units and measure the head pose of the operator. The emotion to be replicated is inferred from the detected action units by a neural network. Simultaneously, the measured head motion is smoothed and bounded to the robot's physical limits by applying a constrained-state Kalman filter. In order to evaluate the proposed system, we conducted a user study by asking 28 participants to use the replication system by displaying facial expressions and head movements while being recorded by a web camera. Subsequently, 18 external observers viewed the recorded clips via an online survey and assessed the quality of the robot's replication of the participants' behaviours. Our results show that the proposed teleoperation system can successfully communicate emotions and head movements, resulting in a high agreement among the external observers (ICC_E = 0.91, ICC_HP = 0.72).

Every year, large numbers of students are not able to attend school due to illness. Extended absence from the classroom has negative and overlapping educational and social consequences as students may fall behind in instruction, feel isolated from their peers, and experience loneliness and depression. School districts sometimes provide individual tutors who make occasional home visits but such tutoring cannot substitute for regular participation in the classroom environment. Telepresence robots may provide a way for students to remain connected to their schools, classmates, teachers, and maintain or develop critical social relationships via virtual inclusion. A total of sixty-one participants were included in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five homebound children, five parents, ten teachers, thirty-five classmates, and six school/district administrators. While the robots were deployed, one home observation, two classroom observations and two focus group sessions were conducted. This study is a small-scale exploratory case study that examined the use of robots to attend school and how schools integrated homebound students via robots into traditional classrooms. Three themes emerged from the coding and analysis of the data: 1) anthropomorphism for social acceptance and normalcy, 2) overcoming isolation to meet socio-emotional needs, and 3) new experiences that generated talk of an academic future.

Millions of children and adolescents in the US now live with chronic illnesses such as cancer, immuno-deficiency disorders, and others (Sexson & Madan-Swain, 1993). This has led to a growing population of homebound pediatric patients who are unable to physically attend school, due to symptoms or treatments of their illness, but who are still cognitively able to learn. In our study, we explored the use of telepresence robots by homebound pediatric patients to attend their local schools. In order to explore if this practice may have a positive effect on perceived well-being, we sought to answer the questions: 1) Why are students using these robots? 2) Do they feel happier using the robots? Remaining connected to peers and school community was the primary motivation for students using this technology. Almost all participants reported feeling” happy” or “good” when using the robot.

This dissertation is a study of the early career of the American artist Joan Jonas that spans the years 1970-1984. At the turn of the 1970s, Jonas was one of the first artists to pick up a video camera. Exploring “live” video’s unique capacity to mediate the present moment, Jonas actively integrated the technology into her live pieces, which are some of the earliest examples of what was then first called “performance art.” Performance art has often been aligned with presence. In contrast, I argue that what at stake in the proliferation of live artworks by Jonas and others that merged performance and video was not a reserve of unmediated experience, but a presence that was newly technologized: telepresence. As Jonas investigated the novel ability to perform at a distance enabled by electronic media, her work led somewhere surprising: to telegraphy, telepathy, and the earliest telephones—“tele”-technologies that appear long obsolete (or completely fantastical). Evoking optical telegraphs, spirit mediums, speaking trumpets, and science fictional prostheses, Jonas’s early oeuvre reactivates the historical contexts and unrealized potentials surrounding these dead media. In so doing, she illuminates enduring formations of the body, subjectivity, and teletechnology underlying not only the twinned emergence of performance and video art in the 1970s, but also telepresence as a seemingly very contemporary (and increasingly pervasive) category of experience.

The evolution of technological tools has allowed for the increased quality of telepresence in the classroom. The experience using a telepresence robot and holographic projection is reported in official college level classes taught at the Tec de Monterrey in the period 2013-2015. This combination allows students to “feel” the presence of the professor in the classroom through a human scale holographic image, bi-directional audio and video and autonomous movements of the remotely controlled robot. The individual and combined use of these telepresence devices is reported. The results founds show that we are on the correct path. This work has echoed in the Latin-American community, mainly in Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Our work is shown as a way of disseminating this information and as an invitation for other researchers in the world to collaborate, thereby accumulating experience, formality and scientific rigor.