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OCULUS RIFT AND ROBOTIC HEADS: A MATCH MADE IN GEEK HEAVEN

• http://www.popsci.com, By Erik Sofge

Like its namesake, DORA was born to explore. Specifically, the robot—which was built by a team of students at the University of Pennsylvania—is designed to be a kind of exploration surrogate, able to move its head with the same speed and flexibility as the human seeing through its eyes. DORA's movements are mapped to an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, so when the goggle-wearer swivels left, the robot follows suit. It provides something seemingly unprecedented in robotics: telepresence from the neck up.

In fact, that's pretty much all DORA, or Dextrous Observational Roving Automaton, can do. It's a robotic bust mounted on a four-wheeled, battery-powered cart, so it can navigate itself through environments. But mobility isn't the focus of this research project. "This is about recreating the experience of being in another place," says John Nappo, an undergraduate roboticist at UPenn. "We thought, How do we capture this in as realistic a way as possible?"


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