Artificial skin and tactile sensing for socially interactive robots: A review

During social interaction humans extract important information from tactile stimuli that enriches their understanding of the interaction. This process depends, however, not only on the underlying characteristics of touch, but is influenced by factors such as the context of the interaction, together with the cultures, beliefs and emotions of the individuals who are communicating. The development of a similar capacity in a robot-to “understand” the intended meaning of touch-has the potential to significantly improve the future success of intuitive human-robot interaction. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in interactive touch and tactile sensing for socially interactive robots.