Networked robotics: its present status and future prospect]

One of the most promising technologies today is the integration of virtual reality and robotics on a network. This is called network robotics in general and R-cubed (real-time remote robotics) in particular. R-cubed is a Japanese national R&D scheme to realize augmented telexistence (tele-existence) through various kinds of networks including the Internet. Telexistence is a concept named for the technology that enables people to have a real-time sensation of being present at a location other than the place where they actually exist, and to interact with a remote and/or virtual environment. They can thus "telexist" in a real environment that the robot is present or in a virtual environment that a computer has generated. It is also possible to telexist in a mixed environment of real and virtual which can be called augmented telexistence. The concept of telexistence, i.e., virtual existence in a remote or computer-generated environment, has developed into the national R-cubed R&D scheme to create an advanced and comfortable life for the network society of the 21st century. Based on the national R&D scheme of R-Cubed, the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP) was launched in April 1998. This is an effort to integrate telerobotics, network technology, and virtual reality into networked telexistence, and significant results are expected.