By Terence J. Grant, July 1, 2004
Head-mounted projectors, robots, and cloaking devices. What do all these have in common? Well, from an engineering perspective, easy to build, harder, and improbable; but not impossible. Some would argue otherwise, and in the past I would have too. However there was a recent article circulating the wires about an invisibility cloak straight out of a science fiction movie and into reality; and it goes by the name of “optical camouflage.”
Inventor and professor Susumu Tachi, of the University of Tokyo, recently demonstrated a cloaking technology that, as he puts it “kind of augment[s] reality.” The camouflaging technology uses what is termed as “retro-reflective material” to do its dirty work. Tiny light-reflecting beads display what is effectively “behind” the garment. The videos presented by the university of the technology in action are more than impressive. The next evolutionary step in optical camouflage, according to the team, is to create a cloaked room.
At this point of course you might be wondering what military strategies are being cooked up, whether it be stealth assassins or cloaked aircraft carriers or just really cool Halloween costumes. Perhaps you're just wondering what all this has to do with the future of distance learning, and where the robots I mentioned earlier fit in.
Do a little digging on the University of Tokyo's website and you'll hit the jackpot. A little project under way called “Telexistance” is the reason for all the fuss, and the reason for the university's independent projects such as optical camouflage and its close cousin “Crystal Vision.” Telexistance is the future of distance learning, working, and living- all through distance “being.”
A project eighteen years in the making, Telexistance is currently implemented using head-mounted projectors on a user to display images from a remote robotic mannequin in a distant location. The remote robot mimics head turns and shifts by the user, and the image of the distant location is projected inside of the room of the user, to simulate the user being there.
Now that the cloaking technology is working, something akin to the reciprocal is done. The head-mounted projector also contains a head-mounted camera, which captures images of the user, which is then projected upon the remote robotic mannequin. This completes Telexistance- not only is the user “there” by being a voyeur via the camera, the user is “there” by having his own visual avatar projected upon the robotic mannequin.
By extending the cloaking mechanism to an entire room, it appears as though they want to go a step farther; the projecting of remote rooms onto local rooms, with additional wall-mounted cameras, could lead a step further beyond having to wear any cumbersome head-mounted device.
While the applications of work in dangerous conditions could be performed with such technology, the more practical application of Telexistance would be to tackle distance learning. A student with an illness or immobility would need only to “Telexist” in a classroom at the point in time of the class. Now while this might seem like overkill in typical situations, consider “on-the-job” training in fields such as medicine, where it might be more feasible to keep the professional “on call” and the students close to the educational institution. Also consider applications in space exploration- scientific research of other planets via Telexistance.
It can be argued that the best way to understand something is to get hands on and be there. By building a framework of multiple technologies on top of each other, Prof. Tachi and his team have created something wonderful: Telexistance. It may be just what we're looking for.