Audio-visual attention control of a pan-tilt telepresence robot

This paper presents an audio-visual attention control system to establish focus of attention for a pan-tilt telepresence robot. Our system is able to detect attentions automatically and reliably in a telepresence scenario using audio-visual stimuli based on speech and face detection. We also describe an audio-visual attention fusion method with context-dependent prioritization among competing modules of face tracking and sound localization. In comparison to the current telepresence system, our system involves automatic tracking of users' movement and the user need not manually control the robot. We further implemented this attention control system on a pan-tilt robot, and performed an experimental study that illustrates tracking performance when interacting in real time with human users.