“Miniature Humanoid” Telepresence, how Does it work?

“Miniature Humanoid” Telepresence, how Does it work?

The MH-2 is a tiny wearable telepresence humanoid robot that can imitate every movement created by your friend who is located somewhere else. The idea behind this tiny humanoid robot was envisioned by researchers at the Yamagata University in Japan. The humanoid robot is designed to actually imitate human behavior precisely enough for you to feel as if your friend is really there with you.

Carrying the tiny humanoid robot is not easy. Besides the fact that the tiny robot is resting on your shoulder, its servomotors should be carried in your backpack. It is not a production prototype but a brave experiment in human-robot relations. See image.

In reality, your friend is really at home doing different gestures in front of a motion capture setup and at the same time watching the video captured in real-time by the robot. While your friend is busy doing different things, the tiny humanoid robot is also busy copying all the movements of your friend.

The expressive abilities of the robot are remarkable. Its arms are set to 7 degrees of freedom or DoF, the head is set to 3 DoF, and the body has 2 DoF and an additional of 1 which is committed to imitating the breathing movements.