The design, development and evaluation of an active stereoscopic telepresence system.

The work presented in this thesis documents the design, development and evaluation of a high performance stereoscopic telepresence system. Such a system offers the ability to enhance the operator perception of a remote and potentially hazardous environment as an aid to performing a remote task. To achieve this sensation of presence demands the design of a highly responsive remote camera system. A high performance stereo platform has been designed which utilises state- of-the-art cameras, servo drives and gearboxes. It possesses four degrees of freedom; pan, elevation and two camera vergence motions, all of which are controlled simultaneously in real-time by an open architecture controller. This has been developed on a PC/AT bus architecture and utilises a PID control regime. The controller can be easily interfaced to a range of input devices such as electromagnetic head tracking systems which provide the trajectory data for controlling the remote mechatronic platform. Experiments have been performed to evaluate both the mechatronic system and operator oriented performance aspects of the telepresence system. The mechatronic system investigations identify the overall system latency to be 80ms, which is considerably less than other current systems. The operator oriented evaluation demonstrates the necessity for a head tracked telepresence system with a head mounted display system. The need for a low latency period to achieve high operator performance and comfort during certain tasks is also established. This is evident during trajectory following experiments where the operator is required to track a highly dynamic target. The telepresence system has been fully evaluated and demonstrated to enhance operator spatial perception via a sensation of visual immersion in the remote environment