Connecting the Real World with the Virtual World - Controlling AIBO through Second Life

Second Life is a 3D virtual environment that is created by Linden Labs. It is currently continuing to grow and is widely used all over the world. It has already been adopted by organisations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, ABC, Sony, and many others. The Sony AIBO (short for Artificial Intelligence roBOt) is an artificial intelligence robotic pet dog designed and manufactured by Sony. The AIBO is considered to be an autonomous robot, which is able to gain information about the environment and be able to function without human intervention. The main aim of this project is to use the Second Life online virtual space (virtual world) to simulate and control the movements of the Sony AIBO robot (real world) in a wireless environment using sound software engineering principles. This paper details the design of the teleoperation system and the rationale behind the design as well as proving that the aim of the project can be successfully met. The outcomes of the experiments performed to measure the success of the system are detailed in this paper. These outcomes include how successful the system was in terms of teleoperating the robot using the Second Life virtual world as well as some of the issues faced while performing the experiments and a dicussion of the possible solutions on how to solve the problems. This project could lead to future work in various application domains such as the smart home concept or in the mining industry.