(Invited) Soft-Matter Robot That Communicates Humans By Contacting

Abstract

In the field of soft robotics, research on soft matter robotics, in which the materials used to construct the robot are soft, has been progressing. In recent years, research on soft matter robotics has been carried out in order to make use of the flexibility of the materials used to construct the robot, or in other words, the body information of a soft body (1). In addition, there are attempts to apply the various functions of materials to the functions of robots(2), such as a robot made of hydrogel with shape memory (3)(4)(5). In this study, we focused on the communication between a soft robot and a human, and focused on a robot that communicates with a human by physical contact. In this study, we evaluated three patterns of human contact with soft and hard materials. We have also developed a simple robot that responds differently to the human touch to communicate with a soft material body, and it tries to communicate by being touched by humans.