It is not always feasible or practical to be present at a location of inter
est. Telepresence makes such possible. This paper presents the design and i
mplementation of a telepresence system in which a mobile manipulator robot
is utilized to explore a museum at a remote site, sending live video and au
dio on demand to a user at the local site. The user's sense of presence is
also enhanced through the capability to manipulate objects remotely via the
robot's gripper. The display system is a slightly modified, off-the-shelf
mediascope, a television display system that can be worn like a pair of gla
sses. The head movements of the user are monitored using color tracking, an
d the displayed images are updated according to the motions of the head. Th
is is achieved by interpreting the human head movements and transforming th
em into control signals for appropriate movements of the robot and its moun
ted color camera. Novel features of the presented system include utilizatio
n of human implicit commands, availability and cost-effectiveness of the sy
stem, feeling of presence, and intelligence fusion of the human user (where
to go and what to do) with the robot's intelligence (local obstacle avoida
nce and navigation). The multimedia interface and control of the system are
described in detail. Additionally, a number of research issues that requir
e further investigation in order to realize attainable, high fidelity telep
resence systems are discussed in this paper.