Introducing the VR teleportation application

2 min read

The humanoid robot of Pollen Robotics can control remotely with the VRR11
Launching the VR teleportation application on Reachy

At last year's CES, Pollen Robotics turned heads. After all, this done on the show floor by a humanoid robot (even if it's only half one). The French startup is back for the show this year, with some key updates to its robot, Reachy (where anyone is really back for the show).

This time out, the biggest news is the addition of teleoperation functionality using a setup for virtual reality. A remote operator can view video through the two front cameras of the robot using a VR headset. For pick and place operations, VR controllers are used to manipulate the arms of the robot. They can use the functionality for training the robot to perform tasks.

For being an open-source robotics platform, Reachy is notable. The $17,000 bot is potentially appropriate for research into robotics, including the prototyping of one's own technology. It's also a fun presentation robot, as evidenced by last year's event, fulfilling a similar function as, say, SoftBank's Pepper. It's not, however, going to take over any production jobs soon.

They build the software for the robot on the popular ROS 2 open source robotics operating system. Since the company first showed off the robot around this time last year, the on-board computer and cameras have both upgraded.

Amit Caesar wrote the article: