How to Build a Better Telepresence Robot
Here’s Ohmni’s process of creating telepresence robots that interfaces with people remotely, from medical through education.
We caught up with Jared Go, CTO at OhmniLabs, to get a description of how to build a better telepresence robot.
Design News: What are the qualities that are critical to building a telepresence robot?
Jared Go: A telepresence robot seems like a simple thing, right? You have a video chat, like any tablet, and it moves around. But when it comes to building one, you’ll find quickly, there are so many things that go into it. You have to design a power system and optimize power to have these robots last several hours between charges. People rarely use these robots for a quick call, they usually log in to them and remain on them for three to five hours. With that comes designing a battery subsystem with lithium-ion batteries, and with lithium-ion batteries comes safety, and with that comes so many other things – and again, that’s just for the batteries. And then because it’s a robot and someone else is remotely controlling it, you need a way to charge it, without requiring somebody to physically plug it in after they’re done using it – thus you have to develop some kind of docking system and build the robot to navigate itself to the docking station safely so that it can charge.
This article was originally published Rob Spiegel in DesignNews. To see the full news story on their website, click the button below.
