Humans Virtually Inhabit Robot

In Germany, university researches have created a robot where a user can virtually inhabit. The robot allows the operator to tactilely sense via gloves what the robot senses when it touches something. Also, the operator can control the movements of the robot. The operator can also see with goggles what the robot sees and hears what the robot hears. The article did not mention this but this is telepresence technology. Telepresence is where a person experiences a location via a robot without him/herself actually being there. The person actually thinks and feels (s)he is somewhere else. Sound like daydreaming doesn't it? Telepresence is a close cousin to virtual reality.

Actually, what the German researchers did is quite an accomplishment. Next to simulating smell, the tactile sense is tricky to simulate. Think what your skin can sense. It can sense touch, pressure, temperature change, and pain. Pain I don't think really needs to be simulated by a robot glove. I don't see a use for that for telepresence. Temperature change sense does not need to be simulated either. You can have a thermometer on the robot to check for instance the temperature on a distant planet but the operator does not need to feel the temperature. Like wise for firemen using telepresence when rescuing people from a burning building. They know that the building that is on fire would be hot so a robot telling them how hot the building is would be redundant. On the other hand simulating touch and pressure is important because the operator does not want to crush anything fragile that the robot hand picks up. In this case, the operator needs feedback from the robot in picking up objects.

Now, if the researchers can now only simulate smell that would be nice but that is going to be much harder.