Explore the World From Your Couch With This Movement-Matching Robot

Games and synergistic movies are fun , but modern virtual realness systems like the Oculus Rift also have the power to permit people travel and have the world without ever give their couch . And theDORA telepresence robot , which can perfectly match the movements of someone fatigue a headset , will help make that VR experience even more immersive .

alternatively of using a remote camera that catch a 360 - degree view of everything going on around it so that an Oculus wearer can calculate around in all directions , robotics researchers at the University of Pennsylvania developed DORA — the Dexterous Observational Roving Automaton — with a pair of movement - matched cameras that serve as someone ’s distant eye .

Each of DORA ’s cameras can teem live 976 x 582 video at 30 frames per second which is much less than what the latest version of Oculus Rift can exhibit , but give the system is still in the enquiry stages , there ’s lots of way for improvement . A VR headset is already able to traverse the wearer ’s movements and position , so that information is transmitted to DORA over a line - of - slew radio tie-in allowing it to absolutely mime every number , move , and elusive transmutation . And since it ’s mounted on a mobile robotics platform , it can let someone wearing a VR headset explore wherever they wanted .

The fully grown vault for DORA ’s researchers to overcome right now is the lag between the VR headset ’s movements and the robot ’s cameras . When latency is below 20 milliseconds , it ’s no longer detectable to someone wearing a VR headset . And Oculus has suggested that a latency of 60 milliseconds is the upper demarcation to making the VR experience credible . But DORA ’s latency presently sits at around 70 milliseconds — partly due to the speed of its mechanical components — and that could be even longer if the arrangement were dependent on a wireless internet connection instead of radio like it ’s currently using .

But the potential for such a robot is astonishing . It could give those living with disablement a unexampled sense of freedom and movement . parking brake respondent would be able-bodied to safely explore an area too dangerous for humans to enter without the restrictions of a static television camera go up to a more traditional automaton . And museums or artistry galleries could even rent out a DORA - like automaton to earmark visitors from around the existence peruse their assemblage without throw to expend a dime bag on airfare . Although humanity ’s future as predicted in Pixar ’s WALL•E edges unsettling closer .

[ DORAviaIEEE Spectrum ]

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