Development of Telepresence System with Inertial Force Sensation Using Motion Base with Limited Degrees of Freedom and Immersive Display

Abstract

This paper describes a telepresence system to provide users with a highly realistic sensation using a motion base with limited degrees of freedom (DOF). Conventional studies using a limited DOF motion base have never investigated the generation of various inertial forces such as a transitional inertial force and a continuous inertial force. This is because the motion base can not realize the same motion as the real ride. This paper proposes a new telepresence system which can provide a user with an inertial force sensation using a motion base with rotational DOF and an immersive display. In our research, the various inertial forces are generated virtually with a component of acceleration of gravity and a visual stimulus which induces self-motion perception. The inertial force is generated with acceleration of gravity by inclining the motion base. The visual stimulus is given to the user by translating a view-point virtually with an image-based rendering approach. The magnitude of inertial force given to the user is determined from a ride motion estimated using an image sequence captured by an omnidirectional camera on the running ride. In experiment, a prototype system has successfully produced a highly realistic sensation in various environments.