<title>Design of a high-performance telepresence system incorporating an active vision system for enhanced visual perception of remote environments</title>

Abstract

This paper describes the design, development and implementation of a telepresence system for hazardous environment applications. Its primary feature is a high performance active stereo vision system slaved to the motion of the operators head. To simulate the presence of an operator in a remote, hazardous environment, it is necessary to provide sufficient visual information about the remote environment. The operator must be able to interact with the environment so that he can carry out manipulative tasks. To achieve an enhanced sense of visual perception we have developed a tightly integrated pan and tilt stereo vision system with a head-mounted display. The motion of the operators head is monitored by a six DOF sensor which provides the demand signals to servocontrol the active vision system. The system we have developed is a compact yet high performance system employing mechatronic principles to deliver a system that can be mounted on a small mobile platform. We have also developed an open architecture controller to implement the dynamic, active vision system which exhibits dynamic performance characteristics of the human head-eye system so as to form a natural and intuitive interface. A series of tests have been conducted to establish the system latency and to explore the effectiveness of remote 3D human perception, particularly with regard to manipulation tasks and navigation. The results of these tests are presented.