A nursing support system for connecting PCs with the real world - proposal of a real-world cursor

We developed a life support system for connecting PC with the real world. This system has seamless interface between the personal computer (PC) world and the real world, we have been studying a method for teaching a caregiver robot and a caregiver person. The interface proposed here allows a user to intuitively direct a robot's motion via a graphical user interface of the sort typical in the PC world. One issue with that system, however, was that the size of the laser spot captured by the camera would be smaller for distant objects, making them difficult to recognize in some environments. To solve this problem, we propose a “real-world cursor” that allows clear indication of the laser spot location, and experimentally demonstrate its effectiveness.