Exploration and implementation of a next generation Telepresence System

Abstract

Human communication includes not only spoken language but also non-verbal cues such as hand and body gestures, facial expressions, etc., to communicate our thoughts and feelings and gather feedback. Telepresence systems of today use a 2-way audio and video transmission to transmit this non-verbal information. In this paper, we introduce a novel Experiential Telepresence System, which possesses cognitive intelligence and is also context-ware i.e., it is aware of the multiple components of communication and ambience in which it communicates - both verbal and non-verbal, making the telepresence experience far more immersive when compared to its peers. This is achieved using a 3-tier architecture comprising of a Humanoid Robot, a Cognitive Collective Intelligence Platform on Cloud and an Experience Centre. Towards the end, a performance analysis coupled with a qualitative analysis of user perception which in otherwords is to measure the Quality of Experience of the system - shows the acceptability and user experience of our system is far higher when compared to with traditional telepresence and video conferencing.