CHI '252025
AvatARoid: A Motion-Mapped AR Overlay to Bridge the Embodiment Gap Between Robots and Teleoperators in Robot-Mediated Telepresence
Amit Ghimire, Anova Hou, Ig-Jae Kim, Dongwook Yoon
Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25), Article 906, pp. 1–26
Abstract
Robot-mediated telepresence systems suffer from a fundamental embodiment gap — the remote user's expressions, gestures, and presence are lost when their only proxy is a rigid robot. This paper presents AvatARoid, a system that overlays a motion-mapped AR avatar onto a humanoid robot to bridge this gap. Through a mixed-method user study comparing three telepresence conditions (robot-only, robot with video, and robot with AR avatar overlay), we demonstrate that AR avatar overlays significantly enhance perceived social presence and user comfort.