Digital Twin Haptic Robotic Arms: Towards Handshakes in the Metaverse

Abstract

More daily interactions are happening in the digital world of the metaverse. Providing individuals with means to perform a handshake during these interactions can enhance the overall user experience. In this paper, we put forward the design and implementation of two right-handed underactuated Digital Twin robotic arms to mediate the physical handshake interaction between two individuals. This allows them to perform a handshake while they are in separate locations. The experimental findings are very promising as our evaluation shows that the participants were highly interested in using our system to shake hands with their loved ones when they are physically separated. With this Digital Twin robotic arms system, we also found a correlation between the handshake characteristics and personality traits of the participants from the handshake data collected during the experiment.