Huggable

Dates

Phase 1: January — December 2005
Phase 2: January — December 2006

Principal Investigators

Dan Stiehl and Jeff Lieberman

Problem

Many populations currently exist in which a great percentage of people do not have access to companion animals or pet therapy. One approach to ameliorate this problem has been to use robots, such as Sony's AIBO, as robotic pet surrogates. These robotic platforms were never originally designed to be used in these ways and as such, do not invite the same types of interactions and benefits that one would have with an animal, such as petting and other forms of affective touch.

Goal

The creation of two Huggable robotic companions for clinical testing by January 2006.

Overview

The Huggable combines research currently being done in the Robotic Life Group at the MIT Media Lab on sensate skins and novel actuators into a portable robotic platform with the goal of relational, affective touch. The Huggable will feature a dense sensor network of different modalities of somatic sensation to detect the affective content of touch. The Huggable will have silent, smooth, back-drivable motion. These features, combined with a behavior system and other sensors, will allow the Huggable to relate to the person through touch - much like a pet does. For example, the Huggable will be able to nuzzle into a person's arm using these systems.

Project Output

Publications

"Sensitive Skins and Somatic Processing for Affective and Sociable Robots based upon a Somatic Alphabet Approach." Walter Dan Stiehl. Master's Thesis in Media Arts and Sciences (2005)

"The Design of the Huggable: A Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational, Affective Touch " by Walter Dan Stiehl, Jeff Lieberman, Cynthia Breazeal, Louis Basel, Levi Lalla, and Michael Wolf. To appear in AAAI Fall symposium on Caring Machines: AI in Eldercare, November 3-6, 2006, Washington, D.C. View article

"Affective Touch for Robotic Companions " by Walter Dan Stiehl and Cynthia Breazeal. View article

"The Huggable: A Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational, Affective Touch " by Walter Dan Stiehl, Jeff Lieberman, Cynthia Breazeal, Louis Basel, Roshni Cooper, Heather Knight, Levi Lalla, Allan Maymin, Scott Purchase. Demonstration Proposal to appear in IEEE Consumer Communications and Network Conference (CCNC2006), January 8-10, 2006, Las Vegas, NV. View article

"Design of a Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational, Affective Touch* " by Walter Dan Stiehl, Jeff Lieberman, Cynthia Breazeal, Louis Basel, Levi Lalla, and Michael Wolf. 2005 IEEE International Workshop on Robots and Human Interactive Communication. View article

Press

"Robotic bears can monitor sick kids - MIT's device packed with sensors " Boston.com, July 31,2006. View article

"The 50 Best Robots Ever. " Wired Magazome, Issue 14.01 - January 2006. View article

Links

Huggable