Robotic Telepresence at Scale

Abstract

Telepresence robots offer a relatively new way for people to project their presence remotely. However, these experiences have only been studied in controlled or small scale installations. To broaden our understanding of the successes and limitations of telepresence robots in large-scale venues, we conducted a study at CHI 2016 where five factors increased over past research: (1) number of local attendees; (2) ratio of remote users to systems; (3) variety of activities; (4) time zone differences; and, (5) environment size. Our results reveal that unlike small-scale venues and situations, remote users take a more socially isolated and functional approach to remote attendance while combating challenges around scheduling and large navigational spaces. Our results reveal new opportunities for thinking about the design of robot personalization, availability, and navigation for systems targeted at large-scale public contexts.