Tele-Handshaking: Now Shake Hands From Long Distances

Video-conferencing has been the best way till now to communicate with people located far away in some corner of the world. It gives more of a personal feeling bringing the other persons closer in a virtual platform on the screens. But now adding to this personal feeling researchers at Osaka University are developing a robotic hand which can simulate a handshake communicating the person's touch, grip force and also the human body temperature.

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This tele-handshaking will be providing a greater sense of human presence which cannot be felt during video conferencing. The robotic hand has been made to reproduce the human feeling by adding texture and a grip force resembling a regular human handshake. The materials used in producing this robotic hand are silicone rubber along with sponge depicting the human skin and muscle structure. The warmth is achieved using a film heater which keeps the temperature at 37 degree C than the normal skin temperature of 32 degree C. This would give the feeling of a real human hand than just a robotic hand which are usually cold.

Pressure sensors are being installed to give an interactive feeling with the grip force as for now the robotic hand has the freedom of gripping the persons hand with a one degree movement capability. The developers are thinking to add this new feature to present tele-presence robotic systems. This would allow for a more interactive tele conferencing system with a human touch. Here's a video of the project:



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