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<p>Karim,</p>
<p>I posted this link earlier to the Homebrew robotics group of a
fellow doing a nifty telepresence experiment using small robots
with smart phones, if you didn't see it:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/hbrobotics/Vx1lDsWQOe8">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/hbrobotics/Vx1lDsWQOe8</a></p>
<p>which includes some nifty video demos. As to your larger
question, we built a remote piloted vehicle at smu some years ago
and I drove it around the building quite a bit and learned some
things. Here's a link:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.geology.smu.edu/dpa-www/robo/camcar/">http://www.geology.smu.edu/dpa-www/robo/camcar/</a></p>
<p>The original car had a fixed mount camera but we found we needed
to be able to look around, for example to cross the street, so a
two-axis servo mount was added and we found that, in addition to
looking around, the robot could now nod it's head for yes and
shake back and forth for no. So we could pull up to a closed door
or elevator and wait for a human to come along, and through "yes"
and "no" interactions get them to open the door for us. People
seemed quite willing to do so.</p>
<p>The mount was setup so it could rotate a little more than 360
degrees and that turned out to be really valuable when the robot
or it's antenna got stuck on something. Also to see the wheels
to determine what they might be running up against.<br>
</p>
<p>We also found that we could push objects around and interact with
the environment. Here's a video of the robot worrying a trashcan
away from the wall and pushing it into the stairwell and down the
stairs:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.geology.smu.edu/dpa-www/robo/camcar/camcar_can.mpg">http://www.geology.smu.edu/dpa-www/robo/camcar/camcar_can.mpg</a></p>
<p>A couple a times the robot itself fell down a flight of stairs,
and it was completely confusing as to what was happening as it
tumbled end over end. So in the above video you can see the
camera looking down at the wheels to be sure it was far enough
from the edge.<br>
</p>
<p>It occurred to us at the time that this might be a real boon for
someone who was bedridden to interact with the world, perhaps a
sick or handicapped child. The comm link was only one way at
the time but that would not be a problem with today's technology.
<br>
</p>
<p>My only real worry at the time was that the last thing we would
see would be a big hand coming in and covering up the video
link...</p>
<p>cheers,</p>
<p>dpa</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 04/25/2020 11:42 AM, Karim Virani
via DPRGlist wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAKtnkiyh6a1Vg1sLmkNf0iWfRtJRcWAEwRg9iR0QeQH_6j-Ucw@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<div dir="ltr">Does anyone here have hands-on experience with
telepresence robots? I know a lot of us have experimented with
the concept. I've done things like setup a remote pan-tilt
webcam at my desk at work with remote desktop and a webcam feed
so people could see me controlling my pc and I could direct the
webcam on their end so I could look around in the office. They
found it novel but spooky. But it didn't have the ability to
move around. My team has played around with this on mobile
robots, but only in a trivial way. Though we are working on
truly remote control of our current robot.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Here is a compilation of some currently available options:</div>
<div><a
href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-telepresence-robots"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-telepresence-robots</a> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm not just interested in the technical aspects. What
about the social norms? How do you set expectations for
co-works for simple things like helping the robot through
doorways or to different floors of an office? Especially when
it is not inhabited.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Clearly this industry is going to boom. Thoughts?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Karim</div>
</div>
<br>
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