Exploring Human Augmentation Technology Part 3: Physical Avatar
Tell us about the “Physical Avatar” system you’ve developed?
Although remote participation in meetings, classes, events, etc., has rapidly expanded since the pandemic, not all participants would participate remotely, and it is expected that there will always be a "mix" of people who participate remotely from home and those who participate locally at the office.
In particular, in a remote work environment, there have been issues of mutual stress in communication, such as people forgetting the presence of remote workers and talking to each other only in the office, and having difficulty making small talk with remote workers.
To solve these issues, our vision is "augmenting presence" of people on the remote side by means of physical avatars, creating a state of being as if users were present even when they are working remotely. This will help make a more natural and less stressful communication experience as if we were facing each other.
To effectively "augment presence," the remote side controls a physical avatar to express themselves as their alter ego. What is important here is to perform the actions of the physical avatar, to visually communicate the reaction and intention of the remote side, according to the situation of the other person in the office.
Our physical avatars allow you to change height as one of their functions. This is a great feature because we believe the size is an important factor in expressing presence. Other actions you can perform include nodding, thinking, and rotating to face the person speaking.
In order to perform these actions appropriately in response to your counterpart, you need to have a good grasp of the surroundings where the physical avatar is placed from the remote side. To that end, the physical avatar is equipped with a 360-degree camera that makes it easy to grasp its surroundings. It also has the ability to automate relatively frequent actions, such as nodding or turning to the person speaking. This feature reduces the load, or amount of manipulation, on the remote side, making it easier to focus on the conversation. It is also important to understand information about sound as well as images. Thus, it has the ability to visualize the volume and direction of the local voice, allowing the remote side to see the voice situation visually.
By using the physical avatar, you can blend into a?hybrid office environment?without feeling uncomfortable, and you can communicate with less stress,?even when working remotely.
What have been some of the challenges you encountered when developing the Physical Avatar system?
Our challenge was knowing how close we could get to natural communication by designing user experiences for both local and remote users.
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Specifically, physical avatars do not pursue a reality similar to humans, as humanoids do, but rather how they can effectively communicate their presence to the local side with as simple a structure and as limited a movement as possible.
It is still not enough to create a mechanism to communicate your presence, but it is important to understand the avatar’s surroundings from the remote side in order to perform these actions appropriately and smoothly, which may depend on the person you are dealing with.
Therefore, on the remote side, we focus on the display of video and audio information to make it easier to grasp the local situation and create a sense of being present. An intuitive and easy-to-operate interface is optimized for PCs, tablets, and smartphones, so you can log in to the physical avatar from anywhere.
What fields and industries do you hope to expand the use of the Physical Avatar in the future?
In addition to office applications, we expect that this technology will be widely used in any situation where remote communication between people is required. This includes remote school classes, family visits at nursing homes and hospitals, communication with family members and friends at home, remote guidance to visitors at the reception of government or corporate facilities, and remote participation in various events.
What kind of society do you hope to achieve through using Physical Avatar technology?
We started development on the Physical Avatar system to solve the communication problems faced by remote workers during the pandemic. However, we hope to contribute not only to the efficiency and optimization of working in the office, but also to the realization of prosperous lives for users. In other words, we want to realize a society in which everyone can feel happy and fulfilled by enabling them to utilize their skills anytime, anywhere, without being restricted by space, time, or physical limitations. This will help people feel more connected to society and more empathic toward others.
Kyocera is looking for research partners to further explore Human Augmentation technologies leveraging our expertise in sensors, telecommunications, IoT, and AI.
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