Emotionally Supporting Humans Through Robot Hugs.

Hugs are one of the first forms of contact and affection humans experience. Due to their prevalence and health benefits, we want to enable robots to safely hug humans. This research strives to create and study a high fidelity robotic system that provides emotional support to people through hugs. This paper outlines our previous work evaluating human responses to a prototype»s physical and behavioral characteristics, and then it lays out our ongoing and future work.