The huggable: a therapeutic robotic companion for relational, affective touch

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown the positive benefits of companion animal therapy. Unfortunately, companion animals are not always available. The Huggable is a new type of robotic companion being designed specifically for such cases. It features a full body “sensitive skin” for relational affective touch, silent, muscle-like, voice coil actuators, an embedded PC with data collection and networking capabilities. In this paper we briefly describe the Huggable and propose a live demonstration of the robot.