Telepresence – a New Way of Collaborating and Make Inspection in Hazardous Environments?

Imagine how the producers and writers of Star warsConference compared telepresence to teleporting
portrayed the user of teleporters between locations.from Star Trek, and said that he saw the technology
The technology enabled people to leave betweenas a potential billion dollar market for Cisco.
locations in seconds and be present on short notice.Michael Venditte,Vice President of Engineering of
We have to think that Sisco had this in mind whenTelanetix defines Telepresence as a human
they presented their newly developed Telepresenceexperience of being fully present at a live real world
Magic to the world in 2006. We have included thelocation remote from one's own physical location.
YouTube link for you to see this session here;Someone experiencing video Telepresence would
Telepresence refers to a set of technologies whichtherefore be able to behave, and receive stimuli, as
allow a person to feel as if they were present, to givethough part of a meeting at the remote site. The
the appearance that they were present, or to have anbefore mentioned would result in interactive
effect, at a location other than their true location.participation of group activities that will bring benefits to
Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, ora wide range of users. Application examples could be
users, are provided with such stimuli as to give thesited within emergency management and security
feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, theservices, B&I, entertainment and education industries.
user(s) may be given the ability to affect the remoteTelepresence can be used to establish a sense of
location. In this case, the user's position, movements,shared presence or shared space among
actions, voice, etc. may be sensed, transmitted andgeographically separated members of a group.
duplicated in the remote location to bring about thisThe cost of deep water diving operations is extremely
effect. Therefore information may be travelling in bothhigh due to safety regulations, hyperbaric equipment,
directions between the user and the remote location.time spent in decompression, and support vessel costs.
Telepresence refers to a user interacting with anotherTelepresence systems for inspection and tele
live, real place, and is distinct from virtual presence,operation for repair and maintenance would realize
where the user is given the impression of being in asignificant cost benefits and also remove divers from
simulated environment. Telepresence and virtualhazardous environments.
presence rely on similar user-interface equipment, andMany other applications in situations where humans are
they share the common feature that the relevantexposed to hazardous situations are readily
portions of the user's experience at some point in therecognized as suitable candidates for telepresence.
process will be transmitted in an abstract (usuallyMining, bomb disposal, military operations, rescue of
digital) representation. The main functional difference isvictims from fire, toxic atmospheres, or even hostage
the entity on the other end: a real environment in thesituations, are some examples.
case of telepresence, vs. a computer in the case ofSmall diameter pipes, otherwise inaccessible for
virtual reality.examination, can now be viewed using pipeline video
Rather than traveling great distances, in order to haveinspection.
a face-face meeting, it is now possible toThe possibility of being able to project the knowledge
teleconference instead, using a multiway video phone.and the physical skill of a surgeon over long distances
Each member of the meeting, or each party, can seehas many attractions. Thus, again there is considerable
every other member on a screen or screens, and canresearch underway in the subject. (Locally controlled
talk to them as if they were in the same room. Thisrobots are currently being used for joint replacement
brings enormous time and cost benefits, as well as asurgery as they are more precise in milling bone to
reduced impact on the environment by lessening thereceive the joints.) The armed forces have an obvious
need for travel - a damaging source of carboninterest since the combination of telepresence,
emissions.teleoperation, and telerobotics can potentially save the
A good telepresence strategy puts the human factorslives of battle casualties by allowing them prompt
first, focusing on visual collaboration solutions thatattention in mobile operating theatres by remote
closely replicate the brain's innate preferences forsurgeons.
interpersonal communications, separating from theRecently, teleconferencing has been used in medicine
unnatural "talking heads" experience of traditional(telemedicine or telematics), mainly employing
videoconferencing. These cues include life–sizeaudio-visual exchange, for the performance of real
participants, fluid motion, accurate flesh tones and thetime remote surgical operations - as demonstrated in
appearance of true eye contact. This is already aRegensburg, Germany in 2002. In addition to
well-established technology, used by many businessesaudio-visual data, the transfer of haptic (tactile)
today. The chief executive officer of Cisco Systems,information has also been demonstrated in
John Chambers in June 2006 at the Networkerstelemedicine.