Telepresence robot gives a helping hand

Record ID: 1355676

  • Title: Telepresence robot gives a helping hand
  • Date: 8th September 2018
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (AUGUST 30, 2018) (REUTERS) UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO, RESEARCH CENTER FOR ADVANCED AND TECHNOLOGY, STAFF MEMBER, TOMOYA SASAKI, OPERATING ROBOT WITH DEVICES ROBOT TRYING TO GRAB A BALL WITH ITS HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) KEIO UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDIA DESIGN, PROJECT SENIOR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, MHD YAMEN SARAIJI, SAYING: "From one perspective, we can loo
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2018 10:58
  • Keywords: telepresence robot VR remote control robot Keio University University of Tokyo social augmentation
  • Location: TOKYO, JAPAN
  • City: TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA0038X1P9AZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:A wearable robot that allows one person to "share" someone else's body is being developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo and Keio University.
    The robot has arms and a "head" that are operated remotely by a user wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset. Another user acts as what the developers call a surrogate body by wearing the robot like a backpack.
    The telepresence robot project is called Fusion - or Full Body Surrogacy for Collaborative Communication - and was on show at the SIGGRAPH 2018 conference in Vancouver, Canada in August.
    Lead researcher MHD Yamen Saraiji said the project aimed to enable two people to share the same view and share a body.
    "We have augmented multiple people into the same body," the 30-year-old Syrian told Reuters.
    He said that what makes this system different to other telepresence robots is combining visual with physical communication.
    Saraji envisages the technology being used for collaboration, task sharing and training.
    The robotic arms can be moved independently of the surrogate body to pick up small objects or shake hands. The robotic hands can also be replaced with straps that wrap around the wearer's wrists, allowing complete remote control of the backpack wearer,
    The control unit is housed in the backpack, which communicates data from the head and arms of the robot to the VR headset. The backpack also holds the battery for the system. The robot's head, located just behind and to the side of the surrogate's head, has two cameras providing binocular vision and microphones. The user wearing the VR headset controls the robot using handheld controllers.
    Tomoya Sasaki, of Tokyo University's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, was in charge of the hardware, especially the hands. It took them eight months to create the robot.
    Both Saraiji and Sasaki see the medical industry as having the most obvious potential use for the unnamed robot, in particular rehabilitation or therapies.
    "It will require a lot of clinical trials, interactions with people with medical background. But as a concept, it might work", says Saraiji confidently.
    For practical use, they would need more feedback on how the users feel, added Sasaki. When the surrogate starts moving around, the other user might experience motion sickness.
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