T2Remoter: a Remote Table Tennis Coaching System Combining VR and Robotics

Abstract

The spread of the new corona virus has imposed limitations on social physical interactions, increasing the importance of remote collaboration and work applications. This has especially effected tasks that require direct physical contact, such as skill-transfer. Accordingly, we have developed T2Remoter, a table tennis instruction system that combines robotics and VR. Our system consists of a VR table-tennis environment that is shared between the coach and the trainee, and a robot arm that is teleoperated by the coach and used to guide the hand-movements of the trainee. To the best of our knowledge, T2Remoter is the first teleoperated VR based table tennis training system. We conducted a series of focus groups to explore critical training routines and contexts for T2Remoter, involving 12 table tennis experts. We extract three main categories of training routines and contexts, and discuss their importance for implementation in T2Remoter.