Development of an Inflatable Haptic Device for Pain Reduction by Social Touch

Abstract

Previous Human-Robot Interaction studies have shown that social touching can be established under human-robot touch conditions. To provide the sensation of a robot grasping human hand when he/she grasps the robot, we develop a soft robot that is consisted of airbags and a force sensor. We expect that this mutual touching can take a positive role in alleviating human pains. This paper presents the development of our two prototypes of inflatable haptic devices consisting of airbags.