Different segments of society face challenges in communicating physically with their relatives, friends or coworkers. Disabled children, especially those belonging to underdeveloped areas, who don’t have the means to access the premises of a school and those elderly people who don’t have the capability or resources to connect with their loved ones, are the example of socially deprived people. Telepresence robot system removes above mentioned challenges and provides remote users the feeling of being in the same physical space, when in real world they are in different locations. A kid in a far off place in Africa can now be educated even in his/her own home, whereby a teacher is virtually present in his home, using a telepresence robot. An elderly person doesn’t have to wait for weekends to meet their relatives because they can communicate with their loved ones at any time, using the video and voice capability of a telepresence robot.
The goal of the project is to make a prototype of a virtual telepresence robot. This robot equipped with a camera is placed in a distant location to capture the surrounding environment in visual form. The captured visuals are displayed on the user’s smart phone screen. This provides the user with a real-time experience as if he is present at the location of the virtual telepresence robot. The user has the control to move the robot in any direction he/she wants by using Blynk android application, installed in his/her smart phone.
The telepresence robot presented by the project is a research platform for perception, navigation and the human-robot interaction. However, the improvements in remotely controlled devices continue to advance along with video conferencing technology which benefits the field of telepresence Robotics. The system has been thoroughly tested and its performance is quite satisfactory. It can be used by health professionals and teachers. Installing microphones and speaker phones on this robot will realize a step further towards the interaction with the robot personally and hence taking the video conferencing to another level which could be beneficial in educational field.