TeleAware Robot: Designing Awareness-augmented Telepresence Robot for Remote Collaborative Locomotion

TL;DR

This paper addresses the limited environmental and social awareness in telepresence-enabled collaborative locomotion by deriving an awareness framework from observational studies of dyadic exhibition viewing. It then implements TeleAware, an awareness-augmented telepresence robot, with four design goals to improve environmental visibility, partner location awareness, embodied interaction, and joint referencing of information. In a controlled 2×2 experiment, TeleAware reduced user workload, increased mutual awareness, and fostered closer social proximity and presence compared to a standard telepresence robot, with remote leaders able to coordinate effectively. The findings offer design principles and practical impact for developing telepresence systems that support collaborative locomotion, suggesting broader applicability to remote collaboration tasks and future enhancements in visibility, location awareness, embodiment, and referential signaling.

Abstract

Telepresence robots can be used to support users to navigate an environment remotely and share the visiting experience with their social partners. Although such systems allow users to see and hear the remote environment and communicate with their partners via live video feed, this does not provide enough awareness of the environment and their remote partner's activities. In this paper, we introduce an awareness framework for collaborative locomotion in scenarios of onsite and remote users visiting a place together. From an observational study of small groups of people visiting exhibitions, we derived four design goals for enhancing the environmental and social awareness between social partners, and developed a set of awareness-enhancing techniques to add to a standard telepresence robot - named TeleAware robot. Through a controlled experiment simulating a guided exhibition visiting task, TeleAware robot showed the ability to lower the workload, facilitate closer social proximity, and improve mutual awareness and social presence compared with the standard one. We discuss the impact of mobility and roles of local and remote users, and provide insights for the future design of awareness-enhancing telepresence robot systems that facilitate collaborative locomotion.

Figures (11)

• Figure 1: a) and b) are photos from the observational study in the exhibition with low visitor flow. c) and d) are photos from the exhibitions with higher visitor flow.
• Figure 2: In collaborative locomotion, the "User-Partner-Environment" framework diagram primarily encompasses three relationships: "User-Environment," "User-Partner," and "User-(Partner-Environment)." The User-Environment relationship is founded on spatial awareness, with the objective of clearly perceiving the environment. The User-Partner relationship is grounded in social awareness, aiming to maintain social synchronization. The User-(Partner-Environment) relationship, based on situational awareness, signifies partners' aspiration to form a joint reference to environmental information with each other. The two solid lines represent the relationships between the user and the environment, and between the user and the partner, respectively. Meanwhile, the dashed line, in conjunction with the dashed box, collectively signifies the User-(Partner-Environment) relationship. Arrows indicate the user's demands towards the respective entities, highlighting the directional nature of these requirements within the framework. Bidirectional arrows represent the mutual need for expression and understanding between the user and partners in the User-(Partner-Environment) relationship.
• Figure 3: Design concept and prototype effect diagrams for Design Goal 2. a) When the local user appears in the remote user's field of view, the arrow moves to the local user's head, displaying the corresponding relative distance and movement status; b) When the local user is outside the remote user's field of view, the arrow moves to the bottom of the screen, indicating the relative bearing and distance of the local user. c) and d) respectively show the perspectives of the remote and local users when the local user is within the remote user's field of view. e) and f) respectively illustrate the perspectives of the remote and local users when the local user appears in the blind spot of the field of view.
• Figure 4: Design concept and prototype for Design Goal 3. a) is a schematic representation of the shoulder-tapping function design; b) shows the actual effect of the prototype feature. When the local user presses the force sensor, the robot automatically turns towards the local user.
• Figure 5: Design concept and prototype effect diagrams for Design Goal 4. a) illustrates the scenario when a remote user clicks on the screen, and the projector on the robot side casts a ray on the ground in the corresponding direction to guide the local user. b) shows the automatic recognition of the local user's indicative posture on the remote user's display, with a guidance line appearing. c) and d) demonstrate the actual effect of the remote user's referential function, where the remote user guides the movement target through a projected beam. e) and f) display the actual effect of the local user's indicative posture recognition, with the guidance line shown on the remote user's end to enhance the prompting effect.