CASPER: A Haptic Enhanced Telepresence Exercise System for Elderly People

Author

Kadomura, Azusa and Matsuda, Akira and Rekimoto, Jun

Abstract

Although the necessity and importance of exercise support for the elderly people is largely recognized, the lack of skilled and adequate instructors often limits such activities physically. Remote exercise systems can be a solution for this problem because they may be able to support exercise activities even when instructors and participants are in separate locations. However, when simply using normal video-conferencing systems, instructors and participants have difficulty understanding each side's situation, particularly during guided physical actions. In addition, remote exercise systems cannot support the adjustment of the position of each user, a task that is quite naturally performed in normal exercise activities. Our system, called CASPER, solves these problems by proposing a mirror-like image composition method in which all the participants and the instructor are shown on the same screen so that both sides can understand the situation clearly. We also introduce an airy haptic device to remotely send tactile feedback for further enhancing sensations. In this paper, we describe the system design and its evaluation. The evaluation confirms that our system could effectively allow users to perform exercise activities even at remote locations.