The Twente humanoid head and neck was developed as a research platform to research human machine interaction. Recently, the humanoid head and neck were used to develop a telepresence setup using an Oculus VR headset.
This project has come to a standstill due to time constraints and mechanical short-comings. The Twente humanoid head can be used as a remote controlled telepresence setup to enable the user to perform remote controlled manipulations in dangerous environments based on virtual feedback from a stereo camera setup. To this end, the humanoid head must be mounted on a remote controlled rover vehicle together with a remote controlled manipulator.
This individual assignment will only concern the telepresence setup. This setup consists of the Twente humanoid head equipped with stereo vision on one end, and an Oculus VR setup on the user's end. Orientation information of the user's head can be sent to the humanoid head to let it mimic the orientation. Besides, the camera feed of the stereo camera setup is sent to the Oculus VR setup to provide visual feedback for the user.
The work on this assignment will concern making the setup electro-mechanically functional, extending the existing work to an actual telepresence setup. If there is sucient time left, improving the user experience with the VR headset will also be researched.