Development of Robotic Hands for Pain Reduction by Social Touch
Youchan Yim, Fumihide Tanaka · The Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec) · 2019
In this study, we developed a robot hand that social touch in interpersonal relationships can be established between humans and robots. The developed robot hand is device capable of expressing human like body temperature as well as touch and grip like human skin. We developed two different sizes of robot hands in a structure able to grasp other hands and to be grasped by other hands which is different from the traditional structure of robot hands. We made a hypothesis that if a robot hand improves its similarity to a human being, a social touch can be created through physical contact with the robot hand. This means that even from physical contact with robots, the positive effects from social touch can be obtained. It is also suggested that the social touch with robot hands opens the possibility of pain reduction effects like social touch in human-to-human.