Robot Touch
Touch is an important part of human development and connection, but the touch abilities of robots is underdeveloped. We help robots feel things. This work is funded by the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center (OMIC).
Problem
Human friends and teammates commonly connect through handshakes, high fives, fist bumps, and other forms of hand-to-hand contact. As robots enter everyday human spaces, they will be expected to join in such physical interactions, but few current robots are intended to touch humans.
Solution
To begin investigating this topic, we sought to discover precisely how robots should move and react in high-fives, hand-clapping games, and interactive exercise activities. This investigation has included considerations such as how robot planning and control considerations influence social and affective perceptions of a robot.
People
- Triniti Armstrong (PhD Student)
Publications
- Marcus Rosette, Triniti Armstrong, Keegan Nave, Jostan Brown, Kyle DuFrene, Naomi T. Fitter, and Joseph R. Davidson, "Cable Tracing with Tactile Sensors and Learning-Based Pose Estimation," Accepted for Presentation at the ASME IMECE Conference, Portland, OR, USA, 2024. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter, Mayumi Mohan, Rhian C. Preston, Michelle J. Johnson, and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "How Should Robots Exercise with People? Robot-Mediated Exergames Win with Music, Social Analogues, and Gameplay Clarity," Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2024. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naghmeh Zamani, Pooja Moolchandani, Naomi T. Fitter, and Heather Culbertson, "Effects of motion parameters on acceptability of human-robot social touch," In Proceedings of the IEEE Haptics Symposium, Washington, D.C., USA (remote), 2020. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter, Mayumi Mohan, Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, and Michelle J. Johnson, "Exercising with Baxter: Preliminary support for assistive social-physical human-robot interaction," Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 2020. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "How does it feel to clap hands with a robot?," International Journal of Social Robotics (SORO), 2019. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Teaching a robot bimanual hand-clapping games via wrist-worn IMUs," Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2018. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Synchronicity trumps mischief in rhythmic human-robot social-physical interaction," Proceedings of the International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), Puerto Varas, Chile, 2017. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter, Dylan T. Hawkes, and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Rhythmic timing in playful human-robot social motor coordination," Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR), Kansas City, MO, USA, 2016. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Qualitative user reactions to a hand-clapping humanoid robot," Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR), Kansas City, MO, USA, 2016. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Using IMU data to demonstrate hand-clapping games to a robot," Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Daejeon, Korea, 2016. [BibTeX] [PDF]
- Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, "Equipping the Baxter robot with human- inspired hand-clapping skills," Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), New York, NY, USA, 2016. [BibTeX] [PDF]