Telepresence: Design, Implementation and Study of an HMD-controlled Avatar with a Mechatronic Approach

• Main Author: Chan, Darren Michael
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@CalPoly 2015
• Subjects: Telepresence; HMD; Gimbal; Mechatronics; Avatar; Controls; Controls and Control Theory; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Electro-Mechanical Systems; Robotics
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/1395; https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2577&context=theses

Telepresence describes technologies that allow users to remotely experience the sensation of being present at an event without being physically present. An avatar exists to represent the user whilst in a remote location and is tasked to collect stimuli from its immediate surroundings to be delivered to the user for consumption. With the advent of recent developments in Virtual Reality technology, viz., head-mounted displays (HMDs), new possibilities have been enabled in the field of Telepresence. The main focus of this thesis is to develop a solution for visual Telepresence, where an HMD is used to control the direction of a camera‟s viewpoint, such that the user‟s head is tracked by the avatar, while providing visual feedback to the user. The design and development of the device follows a mechatronic approach, where a real time operating system (RTOS) is used in conjunction with a microcontroller for mechanical actuator control. The first-generation prototype, HOG-1 (HMD-Operated Gimbal, rev. 1), developed for this thesis serves as a foundation for study; the implementation and analysis of the prototype contributes to the state of the art by providing a clearer glimpse of hardware and software requirements that are necessary to construct an improved model. Additionally, qualitative and quantitative measurements are developed in the process of this research.