Easy-to-use telepresence and home aid robot

As part of the future environment, we envision home robots that can be used for different purposes, such as telepresence. In our research we are developing a robot whose main purpose is to serve as a telepresence body, but which can also perform home aid functions. The goal is to develop new methods and devices that will improve the current telepresence equipment by providing a self-guiding, intuitive, and very easy-to-use user interface and by creating a realistic feeling of being present in the remote location. This paper describes the design of our robot and two related techniques: speech recognition over a videoconference connection and robot sensor visualization via the video stream of the videoconference. Our techniques allow the robot to be remote-controlled with generally available videoconference software applications, such as Microsoft Netmeeting.