[Networked robotics: its present status and future prospect].
One of the most promising technologies today is the integration of virtual reality and robotics on a network. This is called network robotics in general and R-cubed (real-time remote robotics) in particular. R-cubed is a Japanese national R&D scheme to realize augmented telexistence (tele-existence) through various kinds of networks including the Internet. Telexistence is a concept named for the technology that enables people to have a real-time sensation of being present at a location other than the place where they actually exist, and to interact with a remote and/or virtual environment. They can thus "telexist" in a real environment that the robot is present or in a virtual environment that a computer has generated. It is also possible to telexist in a mixed environment of real and virtual which can be called augmented telexistence. The concept of telexistence, i.e., virtual existence in a remote or computer-generated environment, has developed into the national R-cubed R&D scheme to create an advanced and comfortable life for the network society of the 21st century. Based on the national R&D scheme of R-Cubed, the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP) was launched in April 1998. This is an effort to integrate telerobotics, network technology, and virtual reality into networked telexistence, and significant results are expected.
Tachi
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Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan.
D005544:Forecasting; D012371:Robotics / Q000639:trends*; D014584:User-Computer Interface