A HUG taxonomy of humans with potential in human-robot hugs.

Journal: Scientific reports
Published Date: Jun 20, 2024

Abstract

Humans can easily perform various types of hugs in human contact and affection experience. With the prevalence of robots in social applications, they would be expected to possess the capability of hugs as humans do. However, it is still not an easy task for robots, considering the complex force and spatial constraints of robot hugs. In this work, we propose the HUG taxonomy, which distinguishes between different hugging patterns based on human demonstrations and prior knowledge. In this taxonomy, hugs are arranged according to (1) hugging tightness, (2) hugging style, and (3) bilateral coordination, resulting in 16 different hug types. We then further study the hug type preference of humans in different scenarios and roles. Furthermore, we propose a rule-based classification system to validate the potential of this taxonomy in human-robot hugs based on a humanoid robot with an E-skin of contact sensation. The HUG taxonomy could provide human hugging behavior information in advance, facilitating the action control of humanoid robots. We believe the results of our work can benefit future studies on human-robot hugging interactions.

Authors

  • Zheng Yan
  • Zhipeng Wang
    Department of Pharmacy, Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200003, PR China.
  • Ruochen Ren
    Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201210, China.
  • Chengjin Wang
    Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, School of Physics and TEDA Applied Physics, Ministry of Education, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • Shuo Jiang
    The State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
  • Yanmin Zhou
    State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai, 201210, China. yanmin.zhou@tongji.edu.cn.
  • Bin He
    Clinical Translational Medical Center, The Affiliated Dongguan Songshan Lake Central Hospital, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, China.

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