Audio-visual attention control of a pan-tilt telepresence robot

This paper presents an audio-visual attention control system to establish focus of attention for a pan-tilt telepresence robot. Our system is able to detect attentions automatically and reliably in a telepresence scenario using audio-visual stimuli based on speech and face detection. We also describe an audio-visual attention fusion method with context-dependent prioritization among competing modules of face tracking and sound localization. In comparison to the current telepresence system, our system involves automatic tracking of users´ movement and the user need not manually control the robot. We further implemented this attention control system on a pan-tilt robot, and performed an experimental study that illustrates tracking performance when interacting in real time with human users.