Page 293 - Robots Androids and Animatrons : 12 Incredible Projects You Can Build

The Berkeley group is striving for tele-embodiment systems. A true
tele-embodiment system would require a complex sensor feedback
system from the blimp avatar to the user. Currently the feed-
back system provides video and sound. The user can maneuver
the blimp via radio control.
The most interesting aspect of this blimp is that it may be controlled
over the Internet, hence the name WEB Blimp. The video is fed to
the Internet via a video frame grabber with a CU-SeeMe format
output. The WEB Blimp is made available through the Berkeley
website (see Internet Access at the end of this chapter).

Designing telepresence blimps as avatars and golems

Almost as good as being there! Robotic blimps or a reasonable fac-
simile have a good future in the telepresence industry. Suppose
you wanted to look at some paintings in the Louvre in Paris, visit
the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, then
jump over to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and finally
check out the penguins on the Galapagos Islands. And let’s say you
wanted to do all this in a couple of hours.

One way this may be accomplished in real time is through the use
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of telepresence systems. One day in the future there will be sight-
seeing telerobots you may jump into through a phone (or satellite)
link and your home computer VR system. These robots will be
located at many points of interest throughout the world.
The telerobots are not restricted to Earth. There will be telerobots
in space, underwater, and flying through the air. The Jason project
is one underwater science adventure for schools. Through a satellite
link, schools set up a communication link to scientists on a remote
vessel. Students are able to learn what the scientists are doing, ask
questions, and sometimes operate a TROV (telepresence remotely
operated vehicle) via the satellite link.

To the moon

Lunacorp in Fairfax, Virginia, has plans to place a civilian rover on
the moon (see Fig. 14.1). For part of the time the rover will be used
as a telepresence system for earth-bound drivers (see Fig. 14.2). Un-
fortunately, the operation cost is expensive, approximately $7000
per hour. I don’t know about you, but I’ll plunk down $120 to drive a
telepresence rover across the lunar surface for a minute.
Lunacorp plans to get the rover to the moon in 2003: the site, Tran-
quility Base. But we are digressing from our main topic of blimps.

Team LRN
Chapter fourteen