Leveraging 5G in cyber-physical system for low-cost robotic telepresence

Abstract

Our society relies on connectivity and free movement of labor and knowledge. The current pandemic has proven us that we cannot always achieve this with the means we are accustomed to. Luckily ubiquitous technologies have achieved the level of maturity required to give us a solid grounding for creating accessible solutions for telexistence. Teleconferencing using mobile phones and even remote operable mobility platforms for those, is not a new approach. However, there are only few openly available and fabricable full solutions for this. In this study we present an architecture and solutions for a situation awareness digital twin with physical interactive teleconference infrastructure by fabricable platform and private 5G mobile network. The telepresence platform can be controlled via immersive Virtual Reality (VR) or a smartphone with an interface that has been integrated to a mirror-world like virtual environment. We present preliminary findings of a technical evaluation and in addition discuss future improvements for better accessibility and other use cases.