Somabotics Toolkit for Rapid Prototyping Human-Robot Interaction Experiences using Wearable Haptics

Zhou, Feng; Price, Dominic; Pacchierotti, Claudio; Kucukyilmaz, Ayse

Abstract

This work-in-progress paper presents a prototyping toolkit developed to design haptic interaction experiences. With developments in wearable and sensor technologies, new opportunities arise everyday to create rich haptic interaction experiences acting on our bodies. However, despite the growing number and forms of smart materials and devices at our disposal, many come with ad-hoc programming interfaces and APIs, which makes it challenging for a designer with little programming and hardware experience to integrate them into a single experience.

Windlin et al. have developed Soma Bits [1], which consist of soft materials and a series of actuators to be attached on the body. The Soma Bits allow rapid prototyping to create "somaesthetic" interactions [2], with the hindsight that the control of the actuators is not precise. Furthermore, the kit is limited to the selected actuators, with little room for extending it when new devices are available. Our work is inspired by the Soma Bits kit, with an aim to extend its use to applications of human-robot interaction and enrich interactive strategies that can be provided by robots.

Citation

Zhou, F., Price, D., Pacchierotti, C., & Kucukyilmaz, A. (2023, July). Somabotics Toolkit for Rapid Prototyping Human-Robot Interaction Experiences using Wearable Haptics. Poster presented at IEEE World Haptics Conference, Delft, Netherlands

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: IEEE World Haptics Conference
• Start Date: Jul 10, 2023
• End Date: Jul 13, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jun 22, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 28, 2023
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/22183301