AN INTERNET ACCESSIBLE TELEPRESENCE

The US Vice President, Al Gore, in a speech on the information superhi ghway, suggested that it could be used to remotely control a nuclear r eactor. We do not have enough confidence in computer software, hardwar e, or networks to attempt this experiment, but have instead built a In ternet-accessible, remote-controlled model car that provides a race dr iver's view via a video camera mounted on the model car. The remote us er can see live video from the car, and, using a mouse, control the sp eed and direction of the car. The challenge was to build a car that co uld be controlled by novice users in narrow corridors, and that would work not only with the full motion video that the car natively provide s, but also with the limited size and frame rate video available over the Internet multicast backbone. We have built a car that has been dri ven from a site 50 miles away over a 56-kbps IP link using nv format v ideo at as little as one frame per second and at as low as 100 x 100 p ixels resolution. We also built hardware to control the car, using a s lightly modified voice grade channel videophone. Our experience leads us to believe that it is now possible to put together readily availabl e hardware and software components to build a cheap and effective tele presence.