Telepresence

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A Teliris VL Executive telepresence system in 2007

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Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.

Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, or users, be provided with such stimuli as to give the feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, the user(s) may be given the ability to affect the remote location. In this case, the user's position, movements, actions, voice, etc. may be sensed, transmitted and duplicated in the remote location to bring about this effect. Therefore information may be traveling in both directions between the user and the remote location.

Telepresence: a matter of degree

Telepresence today: this particular room, a 210 series owned by Pangeair was built by Destiny Conferencing (later bought out by Polycom)

Telepresence is a matter of degree. Rarely will a telepresence system provide such comprehensive and convincing stimuli that the user perceives no differences from actual presence. But the user may set aside such differences, depending on the application. Watching television, for example, although it stimulates our primary senses of vision and hearing, rarely gives the impression that the watcher is no longer at home. However, television sometimes engages the senses sufficiently to trigger emotional responses from viewers somewhat like those experienced by people who directly witness or experience events. Televised depictions of sports events, or disasters such as the September 11 terrorist attacks, can elicit strong emotions from viewers.

As the screen size increases, so does the sense of immersion, as well as the range of subjective mental experiences available to viewers. Some viewers have reported a sensation of genuine vertigo or motion sickness while watching IMAX movies of flying or outdoor sequences.

Even the fairly simple telephone achieves a limited form of telepresence, in that users consider themselves to be talking to each other rather than talking to the telephone itself.

Most often, currently feasible telepresence gear leaves something to be desired; the user must suspend disbelief to some degree, and choose to act in a natural way, appropriate to the remote location, perhaps using some skill to operate the equipment. In contrast, a telephone user does not see herself as "operating" the telephone, but merely talking to another person with it.

Comparison with virtual reality

Telepresence refers to a user interacting with another live, real place, and is distinct from virtual presence, where the user is given the impression of being in a simulated environment. Telepresence and virtual presence rely on similar user-interface equipment, and they share the common feature that the relevant portions of the user's experience at some point in the process will be transmitted in an abstract (usually digital) representation. The main functional difference is the entity on the other end: a real environment in the case of telepresence, vs. a computer in the case of immersive virtual reality.

Implementation

For a user to be given a convincing telepresence experience, sophisticated technologies are required.

Visual

A minimum system usually includes visual feedback. Ideally, the entire field of view of the user is filled with a view of the remote location, and the viewpoint corresponds to the movement and orientation of the user's head. In this way, it differs from television or cinema, where the viewpoint is out of the control of the viewer.

In order to achieve this, the user may be provided with either a very large (or wraparound) screen, or small displays mounted directly in front of the eyes. The latter provides a particularly convincing 3D sensation. The movements of the user's head must be sensed, and the camera must mimic those movements accurately and in real time. This is important to prevent unintended motion sickness.

Sound

Sound is generally the easiest sensation to implement with high fidelity, based on the foundational telephone technology dating back more than 130 years. Very high-fidelity sound equipment has also been available for a considerable period of time, with stereophonic sound being more convincing than monoaural sound.

Manipulation

The ability to manipulate a remote object or environment is an important aspect of real telepresence systems, and can be implemented in large number of ways depending on the needs of the user. Typically, the movements of the user's hands (position in space, and posture of the fingers) are sensed by wired gloves, inertial sensors, or absolute spatial position sensors. A robot in the remote location then copies those movements as closely as possible. This ability is also known as Teleoperation.

The more closely the robot re-creates the form factor of the human hand, the greater the sense of telepresence. Complexity of robotic effectors varies greatly, from simple one axis grippers, to fully anthropomorphic robot hands.

Haptic teleoperation refers to a system that provides some sort of tactile force feedback to the user, so the user feels some approximation of the weight, firmness, size, and/or texture of the remote objects manipulated by the robot.

Applications

Teleconferencing

A Teliris Unified VirtuaLive telepresence room in use (2007)

Rather than traveling great distances, in order to have a face-face meeting, it is now possible to teleconference instead, using a multiway video phone. Each member of the meeting, or each party, can see every other member on a screen or screens, and can talk to them as if they were in the same room. This brings enormous time and cost benefits, as well as a reduced impact on the environment by lessening the need for travel - a damaging source of carbon emissions.

A good telepresence strategy puts the human factors first, focusing on visual collaboration solutions that closely replicate the brain's innate preferences for interpersonal communications, separating from the unnatural "talking heads" experience of traditional videoconferencing. These cues include life–size participants, fluid motion, accurate flesh tones and the appearance of true eye contact.^[1] This is already a well-established technology, used by many businesses today. The chief executive officer of Cisco Systems, John Chambers in June 2006 at the Networkers Conference compared telepresence to teleporting from Star Trek, and said that he saw the technology as a potential billion dollar market for Cisco.^[2]

Michael Venditte,Vice President of Engineering of Telanetix defines Telepresence as a human experience of being fully present at a live real world location remote from one's own physical location. Someone experiencing video Telepresence would therefore be able to behave, and receive stimuli, as though part of a meeting at the remote site. The fore mentioned would result in interactive participation of group activities that will bring benefits to a wide range of users. Application examples could be sited within emergency management and security services, B&I, entertainment and education industries^[3].

Mike Ayres, business development director at Easynet, a BSkyB Company, highlights the benefits of Telepresence: "There were four drivers for our decision to do more business over video and telepresence. We wanted to reduce our travel spend, reduce our carbon footprint and environmental impact, improve our employees' work/life balance, and improve employee productivity." ^[4].

Connecting communities

Telepresence can be used to establish a sense of shared presence or shared space among geographically separated members of a group.^{[citation needed]}

Hazardous environments

Many other applications in situations where humans are exposed to hazardous situations are readily recognised as suitable candidates for telepresence. Mining, bomb disposal, military operations, rescue of victims from fire, toxic atmospheres, or even hostage situations, are some examples.

Pipeline inspection

Small diameter pipes otherwise inaccessible for examination can now be viewed using pipeline video inspection.

Remote surgery

The possibility of being able to project the knowledge and the physical skill of a surgeon over long distances has many attractions. Thus, again there is considerable research underway in the subject. (Locally controlled robots are currently being used for joint replacement surgery as they are more precise in milling bone to receive the joints.) The armed forces have an obvious interest since the combination of telepresence, teleoperation, and telerobotics can potentially save the lives of battle casualties by allowing them prompt attention in mobile operating theatres by remote surgeons.

Recently, teleconferencing has been used in medicine (telemedicine or telematics), mainly employing audio-visual exchange, for the performance of real time remote surgical operations - as demonstrated in Regensburg, Germany in 2002 ^[5]. In addition to audio-visual data, the transfer of haptic (tactile) information has also been demonstrated in telemedicine ^[6].

Education

Applying telepresence to education: a professional development expert in Denver uses telepresence to coach a teacher in Utah during initial research of Project thereNow, by Digital Video Enterprises (DVE)

Research has been conducted on the use of telepresence to provide professional development to teachers. Research has shown that one of the most effective forms of teacher professional development is coaching, or cognitive apprenticeship. The application of telepresence shows promise for making this approach to teacher professional development practical.^[7]

The benefits of enabling schoolchildren to take an active part in exploration have also been shown by the JASON and the NASA Ames Research Center programs. The ability of a pupil, student, or researcher to explore an otherwise inaccessible location is a very attractive proposition; For example, locations where the passage of too many people is harming the immediate environment or the artifacts themselves, e.g. undersea exploration of coral reefs, ancient Egyptian tombs, and more recent works of art.

Telepresence art

True telepresence is a multidisciplinary art and science that foundationally integrates engineering, psychology, and the art of television broadcast.

A Soapopera for iMacs

In 1998, Diller and Scofidio created the "Refresh", an Internet-based art installation that juxtaposed a live web camera with recorded videos staged by professional actors. Each image was accompanied with a fictional narrative which made it difficult to distinguish which was the live web camera.

In 1993, Eduardo Kac and Ed Bennett created a telepresence installation "Ornitorrinco on the Moon", for the international telecommunication arts festival "Blurred Boundaries" (Entgrenzte Grenzen II). It was coordinated by Kulturdata, in Graz, Austria, and was connected around the world.

Telepresence and artificial intelligence

Marvin Minsky was one of the pioneers of intelligence-based mechanical robotics and telepresence. He designed and built some of the first mechanical hands with tactile sensors, visual scanners, and their software and computer interfaces. He also influenced many robotic projects outside of MIT, and designed and built the first LOGO "turtle."

Commercial telepresence systems

Telepresence systems aimed at corporate customers are commercialized by such companies as Digital Video Enterprises (DVE)^[8], BrightCom,Cisco, Telanetix, and Polycom. Prices range from tens to hundreds of thousand dollars ^[9]. These systems include multiple microphones, speakers, high-definition monitors, cameras, and often dedicated networks and custom-made studios. They strive to be as transparent to users as possible by providing life-size videos, imperceptible transmission delays, and user-friendly interfaces.

History

The first commercially successful telepresence company, Teleport (which was later changed to TeleSuite), was founded in 1993 by David Allen and Harold Williams.^[10] Before TeleSuite, they ran a resort business which is where the original concept came from. They often found that businessmen would have to cut their stays short to participate in important meetings. The idea was to develop a technology that would allow these businessmen to attend their meetings without leaving the resorts so that they could lengthen their hotel stays.

Hilton Hotels had originally made a deal with them to begin installing them in their hotels throughout the United States and other countries, but usage was low. The idea lost momentum and Hilton eventually backed out. They later began to focus less on the hospitality industry and more on business oriented telepresence systems. Shareholders eventually held enough stock to overthrow the company's original leadership, which ultimately led to its collapse. David Allen purchased all of the assets of TeleSuite and then called the new company Destiny Conferencing.

Although they survived, the idea did not truly catch on until other mega-corporations jumped onboard such as HP, and Cisco which then released similar systems around the mid 2000s.^[11] David Allen sold Destiny Conferencing on January 5, 2007 to Polycom for $60 million.

An important research project in telepresence began in 1990. Headquartered at the University of Toronto, the Ontario Telepresence Project "was a three year, $4.8 million pre-competitive research project whose mandate was to design and field trial advanced media space systems in a variety of workplaces in order to gain insights into key sociological and engineering issues. The OTP, which ended December, 1994, was part of the International Telepresence Project which linked Ontario researchers to counterparts in four European nations. The Project’s major sponsor was the Province of Ontario through two of its Centres of Excellence—the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) and the Telecommunications Research Institute of Ontario (TRIO)." (quoting from the project's final report ^[12]) The Project was an interdisciplinary effort involving social sciences and engineering.

Videotelephony descriptive names & terminology

Videophone calls can be referred to as 'videocalls'. They differ from videoconferencing in that they expect to serve individuals, not groups. However that distinction is becoming increasingly blurred with technology improvements such as increased bandwidth and sophisticated software clients that can allow for multiple parties on a call. In general everyday usage the term videoconferencing is now frequently used instead of video phonecall for point-to-point calls between two units. Both videophone calls and videoconferencing can also be referred to as a video link.

Webcams are popular, relatively low cost devices which can provide live video and audio streams via personal computers, and can be used with many software clients for video calls. A separate webpage article is devoted to that product.

A videoconference system is generally higher cost than a videophone and deploys greater capabilities. A videoconference (also known as a videoteleconference) allows two or more locations to interact via live two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously. This is generally accomplished by the use of a multipoint control unit (a centralized distribution and call management system) or by a similar non-centralized multipoint capability embedded in each videoconferencing unit. Again, technology improvements have circumvented traditional definitions by allowing multiple party videoconferencing via web-based applications.^{[13][self-published source?]} A separate webpage article is devoted to videoconferencing.

A telepresence system is a high-end videoconferencing system and service usually employed by enterprise-level corporate offices. Telepresence conference rooms use state-of-the art room designs, video cameras, displays, sound-systems and processors, coupled with high-to-very-high capacity bandwidth transmissions, resulting in costs up to US$500,000 per room in 2009.

Typical uses of the various technologies described above include videocalling or videoconferencing on a one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many basis for personal, business, educational, deaf Tele-Relay and tele-medical, diagnostic and rehabilitative use or services. New services utilizing videocalling and videoconferencing, such as personal videocalls to inmates incarcerated in penitentiaries, and videoconferencing to resolve airline engineering issues at maintenance facilities, are being created or evolving on an on-going basis.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has more pictures of: Telepresence

• List of video telecommunication services and product brands -for services and brands across multiple categories
• Presence (telepresence) : analysis of the scientific basis behind telepresence
• Telecollaboration
• Teleconferencing : a more basic form of conferencing that employs sound, or sound and data only
• Telerobotics : deployment of robotics via telecommunications, with applications such as telesurgury, remote mining, etc....
• Unotchit
• Videoconferencing : one-to-many or many-to-many video teleconferencing using a Multipoint Control Unit
• Videophone : one-to-one videocalling without the benefit of a Multipoint Control Unit
• Virtual Fixture

Notes

1. ^ Telepresence Consulting - Human Productivity Lab
2. ^ Cisco sets sail for teleconferencing - vnunet.com
3. ^ Video Conferencing A guide to making a Telepresence Business case by Matt Walker 2007
4. ^ [1] Companies Worldwide Rely on Polycom Video and Telepresence to Cut Carbon Emissions for a Greener Planet, June 5, 2008
5. ^ M. Nerlich & U. Schächinger (Eds) - Integration of Health Telematics into Medical Practice - IOS Press, 2003
6. ^ Westwood et al. (Eds.) - Medicine meets Virtual Reality 12: Studies in Health Technology & Informatics - W. Kahled, S. Reichling, O.T. Bruhns, H. Böse, M. Baumann, S. Egersdörfer, D. Klein, A. Tunayer, H. Freimuth, A. Lorenz, A. Pessavento & H. Ermert - Palpation Imaging using a Haptic System for Virtual Reality applications in Medicine. - pp 147-153, IOS Press, 2004
7. ^ "Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Telepresence-Enabled Cognitive Apprenticeship Model of Teacher Professional Development by R. Shawn Edmondson, Ph.D.
8. ^ Conti, Juan-Pablo. In search of the Princess Leia effect. Engineering & Technology Magazine. 16 September 2008.
9. ^ Telecommuters lack advanced videoconferencing - for now
10. ^ HPL_Whitepaper_Final_0308.indd
11. ^ Telepresence: Ready for its close-up. Mar 17, 2008, By Dawn Bushaus
12. ^ http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/tp/techdocs/Final_Report.pdf
13. ^ Press Release: WiredRed To Launch Nefsis, Next Generation, On-Demand Video Conferencing At Unified Communications ‘09, Unified Communication Expo website, retrieved 2009-08-07;

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2008)

• "Telepresence" (Minsky 1980; Sheridan 1992a; Barfield, Zelter, Sheridan, & Slater 1995; Welch, Blackmon, Liu, Mellers, & Stark 1996),
• "Virtual presence" (Barfield et al., 1995),
• Oliver Grau: Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003.
• "Being there" (Reeves 1991; Heeter 1992; Barfield et al., 1995; Zhoa 2003),
• "A perceptual illusion of non-mediation "(Lombard & Ditton 1997)
• "The suspension of disbelief" (Slater & Ushoh 1994)
• unknown title (Sheridan, 1992, 1992; Barfield & Weghorst, 1993;Slater & Usoh, 1994; Barfield, Sheridan, Zeltzer, Slater, 1995)

External links

• Being There ProAV Magazine. 7 November 2008.