Page 222 - Robots Androids and Animatrons : 12 Incredible Projects You Can Build

Telepresence robot 9

IN THIS CHAPTER WE WILL BUILD A TELEPRESENCE ROBOT
(T-bot). Telepresence robots are expanding into a variety of sci-
ence, entertainment, business, military, exploratory, and industrial
applications as was illustrated in Chap. 2.

What’s in a name?
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The late science fiction writer Robert Heinlein is credited as the first
person to predict the use of telepresence robots in his 1940 science
fiction novel titled Waldo. In the story, a human operates mechanical
puppets, called “waldos,” to do his bidding from a remote location.
Rather than use the term “waldo,” I found the word “golem” from
Yiddish mythology more suitable. The story of the golem describes
a human spirit who intentionally places itself in a clay figurine. The
spirit controls the clay figurine, bidding it to do that which the spirit
would not or could not do in its human form. Once the golem’s work
is finished, the spirit returns to its human form. This definition
adequately describes the new science of telepresence. I therefore
have named my telepresence robot Golem I.

What is telepresence?

Telepresence is a high-fidelity form of remote control that attempts
to project the senses of the human operator into a robot at a distant
site. The feedback interfaces used to create a telepresence system
are the same as used in virtual reality (VR). Figure 9.1 illustrates a
basic telepresence system.
In virtual reality we achieve immersion into a synthetic computer-
generated environment by fooling our senses, as best we can, to
Team LRN Telepresence robot

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