Purpose In recent years, a new transformation known as Industry 4.0 has drawn much
attention throughout the world, and numerous investigations have fundamentally looked into …

Highlights•Social robotics research deals primarily with affect and caring interaction with
human users.•Social robotics is a new field of psychological research focused in a single …

Realistic looking humanoid love and sex dolls have been available on a somewhat
secretive basis for at least three decades. But today the industry has gone mainstream with …

Research on social robots in care has often focused on either the care recipients or the
technology itself, neglecting the care workers who, in and through their collaborative and …

A robot is a programmed actuated mechanism with a degree of autonomy. Medical robots
came a long way since first prototypes based on industrial robots in the 1960s-70 s to …

In soft devices, complex actuation sequences and precise force control typically require hard
electronic valves and microcontrollers. Existing designs for entirely soft pneumatic control …

Hugs are complex affective interactions that often include gestures like squeezes. We
present six new guidelines for designing interactive hugging robots, which we validate …

Soft robotics technology has been proposed for a number of applications that involve human–
robot interaction. It is commonly presumed that soft robots are perceived as more natural …

The efforts to promote ageing-in-place of healthy older adults via cybernetic support are
fundamental to avoid possible consequences associated with relocation to facilities …

This review paper focuses on different aspects of perceived safety for a number of
autonomous physical systems. This is a major aspect of robotics research, as more and …