Evaluating Mobile Remote Presence (MRP) Robots
Tristan Lewis
The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Rd
Bedford, MA 01730
+1 (781) 271-5380
tmlewis@mitre.org
Jill L. Drury
The MITRE Corporation
202 Burlington Rd
Bedford, MA 01730
+1 (781) 271-2034
jldrury@mitre.org
Brandon Beltz
The MITRE Corporation
7515 Colshire Drive
McLean, VA 22102
+1 (703) 983-4997
bbeltz@mitre.org
ABSTRACT
Video teleconferencing systems (VTCs) have enhanced remote
meetings because their ability to convey nonverbal or social cues
can make them simulate in-person interaction more closely than
telephone conversations. Yet many people feel that something is
still lacking, most likely because VTCs require all interaction to
take place in a pre-defined set of rooms and/or from a single
viewpoint. In contrast, mobile remote presence (MRP) robots,
sometimes called telepresence robots, enable participants to move
their focus from their colleagues’ faces to a screen at the front of
the room, to artifacts on a table, to posters or sticky notes on the
room’s walls, etc. Consumers now have a choice of several
commercially available MRP systems, but there are few
evaluation methods tailored for this type of system. In this paper
we present a proposed set of heuristics for evaluating the user
experience of a MRP robot. Further, we describe the process we
used to develop these heuristics.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.3 [Group and Organization Interfaces]: Computer-
supported cooperative work
General Terms
Human Factors, Experimentation
Keywords
Human Robot Interaction, Heuristics, MRP, Telepresence,
Robotics, Usability, Robot.
1. INTRODUCTION
VTCs can be thought of as telepresence (stationary remote
presence) systems. Sheridan described telepresence as a remote
human operator receiving “sufficient information about the
teleoperator and the task environment, displayed in a sufficiently
natural way, that the operator feels physically present at the
remote site.” [10, pg. 6] Rosenberg defined telepresence as “a
human-computer interface which allows a user to take advantage
of natural human abilities when interacting with an environment
other than the direct surroundings” [8]: in other words, a system
that can enable users to interact naturally with a remote
environment. Steuer defined telepresence as “the experience of
presence in an environment by means of a communication
medium” [9, pg. 74] the feeling of “being there.” [9, pg. 76]
Mobile telepresence robots (that is, mobile remote presence, or
MRP, robots) can provide a more flexible telepresence experience
than VTCs by allowing participants to have some degree of
mobility in the remote environment. MRP robots are typically a
mobile platform with some form of audio/video system installed
on them. The increased mobility allows remote participants a
greater degree of agency, as opposed to a fixed-place video
camera and screen.
Due to a number of technical achievements in the past ten years,
there has been an increase in the number and variety of MRP
robotic products available. Often they are specialized to a specific
environment such as elder care (e.g., Giraff, manufactured by
Giraff Technologies AB), health care (e.g., RP-7 by InTouch
Health), or as an office product (e.g., the MantaroBot TeleMe by
Mantaro). Currently there are robots with a wide variety of
capabilities and price ranges on the market [4]. There has been an
increased interest in the use of MRP robots by geographically
diverse companies as a way to facilitate remote employees’
collaboration, as well as to reduce travel expenses. With the
increasing cost of travel, it often does not take long to recoup the
investment in a MRP system.
Our company owns several VGo robots, which we have been
using to study the social aspects of MRPs in office settings. Over
the course of several years of using this robot, we have established
an understanding of the capabilities and challenges associated
with this particular model. We also developed a base of users
who are familiar with its operation.
Thanks to iRobot’s generosity in lending us their new MRP robot,
the iRobot AVA 500, recently we had a chance to evaluate this
robot in our corporate environment. The AVA is a very different
robot from the VGo, as can be seen by comparing their
characteristics in Table 1. It is pictured in Figure 1.
We wished to learn as much as possible about the AVA, but did
not have the luxury of evaluating the system in multiple ways over
a period of years as we had done with the VGo. In fact, we only
had two days with the AVA, and the first day needed to be
devoted to the technical integration of the system into our VTC
network. Thus we were faced with the challenge of performing an
evaluation very quickly that would yield insights into how well
the robot would be likely to fit our collaboration needs and work
environment.
2. METHODOLOGY
When usability engineers need to evaluate a system quickly, they
often turn to heuristic evaluation [6] because this method has been
shown to uncover a large fraction of the system’s potential
interaction problems within a short period of time [7]. While we
know of a specialized heuristic evaluation method for assistive
robotics, which encompasses some forms of MRP robots [11], we
have not seen a heuristic evaluation technique aimed specifically
at MRP robots. We thought it would be useful to create such a set
of heuristics for MRP robots. Since a number of different types of
