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By Panos E. Trahanias - July 2002
If, like me, you were unsure of the meaning of "avatar" outside the science fiction novels of Ian M. Banks, then Panos E. Trahanias sheds light upon its uses in this article. He writes of the achievements of a project which developed a way to provide remote users with a tele-presence in museums in the sturdy shape of TOURBOT.
[Editor's note : "avatar n. Computing: a movable icon representing a person in cyberspace or virtual reality graphics" (Concise Oxford Dictionary)]
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The Internet is a fast evolving technology that electronically connects distant sites; however, up to now, electronic networks serve mainly to exchange and acquire information. In some cases this information is pictorial, often gathered by means of images taken in "real time" with a stationary Web-camera. To take full advantage of a network, such as the Internet, it would be desirable to get real physical interaction with the remote site being visited. Robots, and especially mobile platforms, can extend the Internet towards an interactive platform that allows actions to be carried out and dynamic information to be exchanged between distant sites. The TOURBOT project implements exactly the above concept for the particular case of museums as remote sites.
TOURBOT, the acronym of a project entitled "Interactive Museum Tele-presence Through Robotic Avatars", consisted of a research and technological development activity funded by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme of the European Commission. TOURBOT commenced January 2000 and ended successfully February 2002. The goal set forth in this project was the development of alternative ways of achieving interactive museum tele-presence, employing the novel approach of site viewing through the 'eyes' of robotic avatars [1-4]. This was accomplished and demonstrated in relevant events in real museum environments.
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| Figure 1 : Tourbot meets the press | Figure 2: TOURBOT with young visitors |
The TOURBOT Project was carried out by a consortium that comprised an ideal blend of technical partners (Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Greece; University of Freiburg, Germany; University of Bonn, Germany; THEON Mobile Platforms, Greece), brokers of technology to museums (Foundation of the Hellenic World, Greece), and end users (Foundation of the Hellenic World, Greece; Deutsches Museum Bonn, Germany; Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens, Greece).
The goal of this project was the development of an interactive TOUr-guide RoBOT (TOURBOT) able to provide individual access to museums' exhibits and cultural heritage over the Internet. TOURBOT operates as the user's avatar in a museum by accepting commands over the Web that direct it to move in its workspace and visit specific exhibits. The communication network is, thus, effectively extended by the introduction of interactive, mobile robotic platforms as terminal nodes. The imaged scene of the museum and the exhibits is communicated over the Internet to a remote visitor. As a result the user enjoys a personalised tele-presence in the museum, being able to choose the exhibits to visit, as well as the preferred viewing conditions (point of view, distance from the exhibit, resolution, etc.). At the same time, TOURBOT is able to guide on-site museum visitors providing either group or personalised tours.
To make the TOURBOT system possible, a multimedia Web interface allows people to interact with the tour-guide system over the Internet [5]. Furthermore, an on-board interface facilitates interaction with on-site visitors of the museum. Using the Web interface, people all over the world are able to tele-control the robot and to specify target positions for the TOURBOT system. The robotic tour-guide possesses a multimedia information base providing a wide range of information about the exhibition at various levels of detail. Thus, the TOURBOT system serves as an interactive and remotely controllable tour-guide, which provides personalised access to exhibits with a large amount of additional information.
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| Figure 3 : Tourbot catches | Figure 4: TOURBOT gives | |
| the cameras' eye | personal assistance |
A tele-operated tour-guide robot requires a high degree of autonomy since it operates in a populated environment in which humans are also present. Therefore, the project included the development of a safe and reliable navigation system for TOURBOT [6-7]. The robotic avatar is equipped with a series of state-of-the-art sensors that allow it to acquire information about its environment. The navigation system uses this sensory information to adapt the robot's internal model of the environment and to plan the robot actions.
The TOURBOT project introduces a new paradigm in providing access to cultural heritage exhibits [8]. Through the introduction of museum visiting via a robotic avatar, it facilitates immersive tele-presence with advanced visualization capabilities. Full access to cultural exhibits is granted to the user, in the sense that the latter is able to choose the exhibits to visit, as well as the preferred viewing configurations. The approach employed in the current project introduces a novel model of augmented environments, in that it allows human interaction with, and workspace exploration of, remote sites by means of a robotic avatar.
As a service to remote users, TOURBOT extends current communication networks by allowing mobile robots to be part of the overall structure. Such a mobile agent acts as the user's avatar, operating in a physical environment that is perceived by the user through the robot's sensors. Therefore, the TOURBOT results contribute towards the seamless integration of networks and mobile agents for providing full user access to exhibitions.
Tourbot has achieved its RTD goals and has undertaken demonstration trials in the premises of the participating museums. More specifically, the TOURBOT system has been developed and fully tested in laboratory environment. Following that, and in order to acquire performance data from actual museum visitors, the system has been installed and demonstrated in the three museums of the Tourbot consortium. These demonstrations were combined with relevant events in order to publicise and disseminate the results of the project to professionals and the broader public. Details of these events are as follows:
Prof. Panos Trahanias
TOURBOT Co-ordinator
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas
71110 Heraklion,
Crete,
Greece
URL: <http://www.ics.forth.gr/tourbot
Email: trahania@ics.forth.gr
Tel: +30-81-391 715
Fax: +30-81-391 601
Panos Trahanias is an Associate Professor with the Dept. of Computer Science, University of Crete, Greece and ICS-FORTH. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1988. He has been a Research Associate at the Inst. of Informatics & Telecomm., National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos", Athens, Greece. From 1991 to 1993 he was with the Dept. of Electrical & Computer Eng., University of Toronto, Canada, as a Research Associate. He has participated in many RTD programs in image processing and analysis at University of Toronto and has been a consultant to SPAR Aerospace Ltd., Toronto. Since 1993 he has been with the University of Crete and ICS-FORTH. Currently, he is the supervisor of the Computer Vision & Robotics Lab. at ICS-FORTH where he is engaged in research and RTD programmes in vision-based robot navigation and augmented reality.
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For citation purposes:
Trahanias, P.E. "TOURBOT - Interactive Museum Tele-presence Through Robotic Avatars", Cultivate Interactive, issue
7, 11 July 2002
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/tourbot/>
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