A panorama interface for telepresence robots

Abstract

Telepresence robots are becoming increasingly popular and are increasingly ready to enter use in the real world as stand-ins for remote humans. It is useful, but currently uncommon, to provide the human operator with an approximation of peripheral vision and the ability to saccade around the scene. We have developed an interface which provides peripheral vision to a remote operator by using a motorized pan-tilt camera to create a panorama, and enables the operator to move the camera's gaze within that panorama.