A Review on Emerging Technologies of Telepresence Robot Applications, System Design and Engineering Challenges

Abstract

A telepresence robot is a type of mobile robot that supports a human to achieve a sense of physical presence in a remote environment. A real time audio visual communication, mobility and interactive control is integrated within the robot. Early telepresence robot systems is based on manual teleoperation, through recent advances in communication and mobile robot technologies that increasingly merge adaptive motion and intelligent navigation improved system safety, usability and operational efficiency. This review is intended to study emerging telepresence specific studies in robots and challenges faced with mobile robot technologies. This review aims to cover concepts and developments to favour students and researchers to explore future research directions. The study is majorly done with scopus indexed journal articles and is also complemented with selected conference papers, technical studies and emerging work that address experimental platforms and application based developments relevant to telepresence robots and adaptive mobile robotics. This review is studied based on advances in navigation strategies, autonomy, perception, human robot interaction and system architectures. The paper explores current research trends, compares common existing approaches and highlights critical challenges such as autonomy and user balance, robustness in crowded environments and integration of intelligent decision making. This review also highlights the research gaps and future directions for the development of future telepresence robots with improved autonomy level and navigation capabilities.