A Virtual Reality System for Predictive Display Functionality in a Telexistence-Controlled SEED-Noid Humanoid Robot with Evaluation of VR Sickness

Telexistence technology enables the manipulation of a remote robot using sensory feedback and leader-follower control, giving the operator the impression of controlling their own body. However, the robot’s operability declines significantly due to increasing communication time delays. In order to address this issue, the "Predictive Display" technique has been proposed and developed. This technique displays both the real robot’s movements with time delay and the computer-generated (CG) robot’s movements without time delay. In the Telexistence robot operation system, a predictive display system can be constructed using a virtual reality (VR) system. In this study, we have developed a VR system for Telexistence operation with THK’s SEED-Noid humanoid robot. Unity is utilized, which enables the predictive display function for the stereo camera mounted on the SEED-Noid. We developed and evaluated a display mode without neck joint angle restrictions to reduce VR sickness and workload using the developed VR system. Additionally, we developed a display mode with a limited neck joint angle for comparison purposes.