Can a Social Distancing Robot Help Us Stay Connected?

[seidi]

TL;DR Summary

Looking for ideas, and further resources on how to design and build a remote-controlled robot with a camera, to communicate with a person in a far geographical area in real-time

My girlfriend had this idea of building a robot controlled from distance, which could make the person controlling it to feel in the environment where the robot is. In the context of social distancing, person A would have the robot on his/her environment while person B could control this robot while talking with A (i.e. as an avatar, except in real-world)

Could be a tabletop robot with camera rotation (pitch and yaw) or a wheeled chassis with a camera, for example

My initial thought would be to integrate a raspberry pi or arduino (?) with a camera and servo-motors (basically a webcam which moves). In the case of a wheeled robot, then add DC motors and a battery (e.g.: ).

I'd like to ask you guys, do you have any project for reference? What do you think of the setup I mentioned and what should I look for to implement control over distance, for example via the internet? Moreover, how to implement an online, real-time control over distance?

Thanks!

Note : I'm not used to working with robotics, but I have experience with mechatronics engineering, so technical language is ok with me.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to the PF.

Summary:: Looking for ideas, and further resources on how to design and build a remote-controlled robot with a camera, to communicate with a person in a far geographical area in real-time

My girlfriend had this idea of building a robot controlled from distance, which could make the person controlling it to feel in the environment where the robot is. In the context of social distancing, person A would have the robot on his/her environment while person B could control this robot while talking with A (i.e. as an avatar, except in real-world)

Could be a tabletop robot with camera rotation (pitch and yaw) or a wheeled chassis with a camera, for example

My initial thought would be to integrate a raspberry pi or arduino (?) with a camera and servo-motors (basically a webcam which moves). In the case of a wheeled robot, then add DC motors and a battery (e.g.: ).

I'd like to ask you guys, do you have any project for reference? What do you think of the setup I mentioned and what should I look for to implement control over distance, for example via the internet? Moreover, how to implement an online, real-time control over distance?

Thanks!

Note : I'm not used to working with robotics, but I have experience with mechatronics engineering, so technical language is ok with me.

Google gave me good hits when I searched on VR Remote Robot:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=vr+remote+robot

Have a look at that hit list to see if it gives you some ideas. I think this is a pretty active area or work, with many existing systems that you can learn from. Fun project, BTW.

 

[BillTre]

I have seen this on TV shows (comedies).
I saw one on the Psych show that seemed to be an i-Pad in a rolling stand.
Sheldon's, here, is maybe a bit fancier.

 

[seidi]

Welcome to the PF.

Google gave me good hits when I searched on VR Remote Robot:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=vr+remote+robot

Have a look at that hit list to see if it gives you some ideas. I think this is a pretty active area or work, with many existing systems that you can learn from. Fun project, BTW.

Thanks! VR Remote Robot does seems like an inspiring search

 

[seidi]

I have seen this on TV shows (comedies).
I saw one on the Psych show that seemed to be an i-Pad in a rolling stand.
Sheldon's, here, is maybe a bit fancier.

Sheldon's idea seems a lot like what I was looking for haha
I found some commercial solution like it, but trying to make a solution of my own. Thanks for inspiration