Inspired by animated flying friends like Tinker Bell, Mew, and Soot Sprites from Studio Ghibli, a team of researchers decided to show what a floating robotic companion could be useful for and how humans could interact with it. Led by Mingyang Xu of Keio University in Japan, with participation from other institutions like the MIT Media Lab, the team recently released a demo video.
Watch this: Sweet flying robots just want to be friends
The video shows a lighter-than-air robot with fins gliding through the air, making it look like a floating white whale. It hovers without the loud whir that accompanies most drones. Thanks to its lightweight construction, soft body and lack of pinch points, it can interact with humans with little risk of injury.
Robotics companies often struggle to create machines that are safe to interact with and emotionally engaging, because rigid designs and inorganic appearances can trigger the destabilizing effect known as the uncanny valley — the viscerally frightening feeling people get when something seems almost human, but not quite real.
Floating robots may have advantages over other models when it comes to emotional connection and safe human-robot interaction.
Mingyang Xu/Keio UniversityFloating robots can circumvent this discomfort by replacing robotic facial expressions with smooth, full-body movements and enabling safer human-robot interaction through a soft, flexible form.
The video showed floating, flexible robots serving as a dance partner, study companion, alarm clock, reminder and source of entertainment. To see the robot in action, watch the video in this article.
