An Internet accessible telepresence

Abstract.

The US Vice President, Al Gore, in a speech on the information superhighway, suggested that it could be used to remotely control a nuclear reactor. We do not have enough confidence in computer software, hardware, or networks to attempt this experiment, but have instead built a Internet-accessible, remote-controlled model car that provides a race driver's view via a video camera mounted on the model car. The remote user can see live video from the car, and, using a mouse, control the speed and direction of the car. The challenge was to build a car that could be controlled by novice users in narrow corridors, and that would work not only with the full motion video that the car natively provides, but also with the limited size and frame rate video available over the Internet multicast backbone. We have built a car that has been driven from a site 50 miles away over a 56-kbps IP link using $\mbox{{\tt nv}}$ format video at as little as one frame per second and at as low as $100\times 100$ pixels resolution. We also built hardware to control the car, using a slightly modified voice grade channel videophone. Our experience leads us to believe that it is now possible to put together readily available hardware and software components to build a cheap and effective telepresence.