Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Xi Laura Cang is a researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, affective computing, and social touch. Her work focuses on designing emotionally expressive robots that can perceive and respond to human affect through multiple nonverbal channels, particularly touch and gaze. Cang’s major contributions include developing low-cost, DIY-fabricated social robots like "CuddleBits" (39 citations) that physically display emotions, advancing touch gesture recognition through community challenges like Touch Challenge '15 (30 citations), and investigating how users discern robot emotions from touch and gaze interactions (26 citations for "Is it Happy?"). Her research has been recognized for its practical, ecologically valid approaches to affect recognition, as seen in her work on real-time multimodal sensing (8 citations) and soft capacitive sensor arrays that capture shear and normal stress during affective touch (7 citations). Notably, Cang has also explored robot-mediated communication for remote teams with Synchrobots (2 citations), addressing "zoom fatigue." With over 140 total citations, her work bridges engineering and psychology, offering scalable solutions for emotionally intelligent robots in therapy, education, and collaborative settings.