Surrogate Avatar: Enhancing Situated Co-Presence and User Mobility in Symmetric Telepresence Conversations

DOI

We present Surrogate Avatar, an adaptive telepresence method that enhances user mobility and situated co-presence in symmetric avatar-mediated communication. The system enables a remote user’s avatar to autonomously position itself in socially and environmentally appropriate locations within the local user’s space—based on spatial affordances, interactional norms, and environmental constraints—supporting fluid interaction without requiring a shared environmental context. Through a formative study, we derived key adaptation objectives and implemented them using a distributed optimization framework based on the AUIT system. The framework distributes adaptation tasks across server and client to balance responsiveness and computational efficiency. A user study involving both stationary and nomadic scenarios demonstrated consistently high usability and presence, with some limitations observed under walking conditions. An additional exploratory field study in a semi-structured public setting demonstrated the system’s viability beyond controlled lab conditions. These findings motivate future designs of mobile telepresence systems that dynamically adapt to spatial and conversational context while mitigating misunderstandings that can arise from asymmetric environmental awareness and supporting privacy-sensitive interaction.