Robots Learned to Communicate by Touch Using Shapeshifting Synthetic Skin

A great deal of communication is non-verbal. After all, a loving embrace or a cold stare can often worth a thousand words. This is part of why social robots still leave a lot to be desired, they’re still mostly limited to communicating through screens or with janky artificial voices that make the conversation feel unnatural. But earlier this year, a team of roboticists at Cornell University took a huge step toward changing that.
To help robots learn to communicate via touch and feel, mechanical engineering student Yuhan Hu, along with her colleagues, retrofitted a cute red robot with shapeshifting skin. When it’s programmed to signal happiness, its pale white synthetic skin puffs up into small balloons, and when it’s supposed to be angry rounded spikes vigorously pulsate.