This paper describes the hardware and algorithms for a realtime social touch gesture recognition system. Early experiments involve a sensate bear test-rig with full body touch sensing, sensor visualization and gesture recognition capabilities. Algorithms are based on real humans interacting with a plush bear. In developing a preliminary gesture library with thirteen symbolic gestures and eight touch subtypes, we have taken the first steps toward a robotic touch API, showing that the huggable robot behavior system will be able to stream currently active sensors to detect regional social gestures and local sub-gestures in realtime. The system demonstrates the infrastructure to detect three types of touching: social touch, local touch, and sensor-level touch.

Robots as an embodied, multi-modal technology have great potential to be used as a new type of communication device. In this paper we outline our development of the Huggable robot as a semi-autonomous robot avatar for two specific types of remote interaction — family communication and education. Through our discussion we highlight how we have applied six important elements in our system to allow for the robot to function as a richly embodied communication channel.

This paper proposes a Cartesian control scheme applied to a robotic assistant for laparoscopic surgery. This system's main characteristic is that it emulates the movements of a human assistant, guiding the laparoscopic camera with precision to focus on the area in question inside the patient. Furthermore this control scheme requires adjustment of certain parameters in order to prevent saturation of the manipulator's actuators, and therefore the robot has been studied in terms of manipulability. The proposed movement control scheme has been implanted in the ERM robot used to carry out trials on thirty two patients

Presents a robotic assistant for helping surgeons in minimally invasive surgery. This prototype does not require any modification of a standard operation theatre (furniture or surgery tools) for its installation and its putting into operation. Due to its modular design, the robotic assistant is defined as a multi-purpose tool that has been successfully used in laparoscopic surgery, cystoscopy diagnostic and transurethral resection. The system has been tested by using both patient simulators and animals for experimentation purposes.