A Robotic Arm-based Telepresence for Mixed-Reality Telecollaboration System

In mixed-reality telecollaboration, it is often difficult for remote users to actively and naturally control the viewpoint. We propose a viewpoint controllable telepresence with a robotic arm that carries a stereo camera in the local environment so that the remote user can control the robotic arm by moving his or her head to actively and flexibly observe the local environment. Additionally, we built a mixed-reality telecollaboration prototype that adds avatar and nonverbal cues for the remote user to the local user side, enabling the remote user to better guide the local user. In this paper, we discuss our prototype, make design recommendations, and discuss configuration and implementation.