A Sensitive Skin for Robotic Companions Featuring Temperature, Force, and Electric Field Sensors

As robots become an everyday part of the complicated environment of the human world it will be important for such systems to feature a full body sense of touch capable of detecting a wide variety of tactile inputs. Such "sensitive skins" can provide much benefit in human robot interaction, specifically in the realm of robotic companions for therapeutic or service applications. In this paper we present a set of design criteria for how such "skins" should be designed. Based on this criteria, a "skin" which features temperature, force, and electric field sensing is described. Results from early experiments with this skin show how the sensors of the multi-modal skin complement each other and allow the distinction between social and affective classes of touch to be distinguished from touch with physical objects.