How can you make social robots out of simple, soft shapes and objects, i.e. robots for interacting with people and animals? Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, Vietnamese students Nhi Hoang Yen Tran and Thang Vu Hoang are investigating this question in the project “Simple, Soft Social Robots” at the School of Business FHNW. They are using Hugvie from the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories as a basis – these labs are particularly famous for the Geminoid and for Erica. But hugging robots like Telenoid also come from them. The latest product from this series is Hugvie. A pocket for a smartphone is attached to its head. People who are far away from each other can talk to each other and have the feeling of hugging and feeling each other. But what else can you do with Hugvie and similar forms? Can you make them conversationalists themselves, can you teach them to move their limbs and be active in other ways? And what does such robotization of simple, soft forms and objects mean for everyday life and society?
BY OLIVER BENDEL
