Faris Keenan Undergraduate Dissertation 2014/15

Telepresence using the Nao robot

Supervised by G.Brown

Abstract

Telepresence is the ability to be present in an environment from a remote location. Regardless of whether or not true presence is achievable, the practical benefits of widespread adoption of telepresence are many, such as the revolutionising of economies by eliminating geographical barriers leading to increased mobility of labour. Environmental benefits are also evident, if one can be present in a remote environment from their current location why then suffer the cost of greenhouse emitting forms of travel?

Through the use of the Kinect motion detector, NAO robot and Oculus Rift the project will aim to create a telepresence system which maximises the feelings of presence, experience with the constraints of the hardware.

The main features implemented to achieve this aim in the resolving system involve, the imitation of a teleoperator's movements by the NAO and the real-time display of the user's emotions through its LEDs in colour representation.