Omnidirectional Robotic Telepresence through Augmented Virtuality for Increased Situation Awareness in Hazardous Environments

This paper proposes a novel low-cost robotic telepresence approach to situation awareness, initially aimed for hazardous environments. The robot supports omnidirectional movement, wide field of vision, haptic feedback and binaural sound. It is controlled through an augmented virtuality environment with an intuitive position displacement scheme that supports physical mobility. The operator thereby can conduct work away from danger whilst retaining situation awareness of the real environment.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice of Professor Sillitoe, Department of Engineering and Technology, University of Wolverhampton, U.K., in the preparation of this paper.