Robotic Device to Mediate Human-Human Hug-Driven Remote Communication

Nuñez, Eleuda; Hirokawa, Masakazu; Igarashi, H.; Suzuki, Kenji

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70022-9_20

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…Similar to the friendship lamps, other researchers developed a plush pillow, the Macaron [56], that uses infrared photo-reflective sensors to detect when a user is hugging it. It then sends a message over Bluetooth to the partner pillow, which lights up with blue-colored LEDs and blinks to indicate the intensity with which the partner hugged the other Macaron.…”

Section: Comfortmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the Arms of a Robot: Designing Autonomous Hugging Robots with Intra-Hug Gestures

Block¹,

Seifi²,

Hilliges³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Hugs are complex affective interactions that often include gestures like squeezes. We present six new guidelines for designing interactive hugging robots, which we validate through two studies with our custom robot. To achieve autonomy, we investigated robot responses to four human intra-hug gestures: holding, rubbing, patting, and squeezing. Thirty-two users each exchanged and rated sixteen hugs with an experimenter-controlled HuggieBot 2.0. The robot's inflated torso's microphone and pressure sensor collected data of the subjects' demonstrations that were used to develop a perceptual algorithm that classifies user actions with 88% accuracy. Users enjoyed robot squeezes, regardless of their performed action, they valued variety in the robot response, and they appreciated robot-initiated intra-hug gestures. From average user ratings, we created a probabilistic behavior algorithm that chooses robot responses in real time. We implemented improvements to the robot platform to create HuggieBot 3.0 and then validated its gesture perception system and behavior algorithm with sixteen users. The robot's responses and proactive gestures were greatly enjoyed. Users found the robot more natural, enjoyable, and intelligent in the last phase of the experiment than in the first. After the study, they felt more understood by the robot and thought robots were nicer to hug. CCS Concepts: • Computer systems organization → Robotics; • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in interaction design.

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Section: Comfortmentioning

confidence: 99%