HuggieBot 3.0 is the third iteration of a robot designed by a team at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems to deliver the perfect hug.
Hugging probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about things that robots could help humankind with, but a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems disagrees.
Alexis E. Block and her colleagues have been involved in the HuggieBot project for years, trying to create a robot that could deliver human-like hugs and thus replace actual people in various scenarios like providing comfort to the lonely, or replacing someone who just can’t deliver a hug in person for some reason
The advanced robot delivers hugs using a pair of Kinova JACO arms mounted to a custom metal frame that was selected for being anthropomorphic, quiet, and safe.
As a hug takes place, a barometric pressure sensor and microphone inside the artificial chest detect human touch and begin transmitting data via an Arduino Mega microcontroller board to a Robot Operating System