Technical improvements of the Giraff telepresence robot based on users' evaluation

Telepresence robots are teleoperated robotic systems that allow users to virtually visit a remote place and interact with the environment through their sensorial and motor capabilities. This technology has a great potential to facilitate remote interaction and social communication with people, in particular with the elderly. This paper presents some technical improvements for one of such a robot: the Giraff telepresence platform. These improvements, raised by users' experience, are related to a safer and easier driving of the platform, including auto-docking to the recharging station, obstacle detection, and displaying the robot position in a sketch map of the visited place.