As robotic telepresence becomes more prevalent, enhancing communication expressiveness is increasingly important. This paper investigates using 2D visual patterns on a robot’s body as an additional visual channel to improve interaction between remote users. Through workshops with seventeen designers, ten user scenarios and corresponding patterns were created for four environments: home, office, hospital, and department store. These patterns were displayed on the M4K telepresence robot, and an online survey assessed their expressiveness in each setting. Results demonstrate the potential of complex 2D visual expressions on telepresence robots as a supplementary communication method, propose a design strategy, and reveal user perceptions and acceptance of patterns categorized as progress indication, attention requests, and emotions across different environments.
Minkyeong Lee, Okyu Choi, Hyelip Lee, Andrea Bianchi, Bum-Jae You, and Minsoo Han. 2018. Designing On-Body 2D Patterns to Enhance Subsidiary Communication for Telepresence Robots. In 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2018). IEEE Press, 222–227. https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525646