SENSIKS.Anywhere is possible: building remote presence
The $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE challenged teams to create physical avatar systems that let an operator see, hear and interact in a distant environment as if they were there. Sensiks joined the i-Botics consortium to add multisensory telepresence to that ambition.
Move human presence, not the human body
The ANA Avatar XPRIZE was built around a simple limitation: people cannot instantly move their physical skills and presence across distance. The competition challenged teams to integrate emerging technologies into a physical, non-autonomous avatar system.
To succeed, an operator needed to be able to see, hear and interactwithin a remote environment in a way that felt convincingly present. contemporary reporting positioned this as a route to distributing hands-on expertise across geographic, cultural and time barriers.
Three examples of where remote presence could matter
the feature highlighted scenarios where distance limits access to care, expertise or safe human intervention.
Providing care
Avatars could extend a person’s presence and support to someone far away, reducing distance as a barrier to direct interaction.
Disaster relief
Specialist skills could be projected into hazardous environments where sending a person would be too dangerous.
Rare expertise
Experts could remotely provide specialised maintenance, repair or trade skills where local access is limited.
A multimodal approach to telepresence
The i-Botics XPRIZE consortium brought together ETH Zürich’s Robotic Systems Lab, Halodi, Haption, Sensiks, TNO and the University of Twente.
Its concept was to transport both the operator’s social and functional self through a combination of social, visual, haptic, audio and olfactory technologies. Sensory Reality fit this vision by extending presence beyond sight and sound.
The consortium framed its mission around social connectedness, ageing, healthcare, safety, security and the ability to apply skills at a distance.
i-Botics advanced as one of 77 qualified teams
The Sensiks article reports that XPRIZE announced the qualification in January 2020. Teams had submitted their expertise, capabilities and plans for both the functional avatar and its control station.
Qualified
i-Botics was announced as an official ANA Avatar XPRIZE participant.
Planned semi-finals
the feature said qualified teams were expected to demonstrate functional systems in summer 2021.
Planned finals
The competition finals were scheduled for spring 2022.