Tactile Interaction

Tactile interaction research focuses on understanding and replicating the complex interplay between touch and behavior in human-robot interactions. Current efforts concentrate on accurately modeling and predicting object deformation during contact using techniques like physics-encoded graph neural networks, and developing advanced sensor systems to recognize a wide range of human tactile gestures. These advancements are crucial for improving robot dexterity, creating more natural and intuitive human-robot interfaces, and exploring the psychological impact of robotic touch on human behavior, such as its influence on risk-taking and emotional responses. The resulting insights have implications for robotics, human-computer interaction, and our understanding of the role of touch in social dynamics.