Can You Easily Perceive the Local Environment? A User Interface with One Stitched Live Video for Mobile Robotic Telepresence Systems

Many existing mobile robotic telepresence systems have equipped with two cameras, one is a forward-facing camera for video communication, and the other is a downward-facing camera for robot navigation. However, the two live videos from these two cameras would cause some confusion which makes it difficult for a remote operator to perceive the local environment. In this paper, we propose to use a user interface with one stitched live video instead of two live videos for mobile robotic telepresence systems. We used a video stitching algorithm to stitch the two live videos into one live video through which a remote operator can well perceive the local environment. We conducted a user study to investigate the difference between one stitched live video and two separate live videos in the user interface. The results show that the user interface with one stitched live video improves task efficiency, the number of errors, and remote operators’ feelings of presence, and enables remote operators to concentrate on the work they are doing.