Hugging probably isn’t the first thing when thinking about what robots could help humankind with. Alexis E. Block and her colleagues have been involved in the HuggieBot project for years, trying to be trailblazers of a robot that could deliver human-like hugs.
The creators of HuggieBot 3.0 claim that it is “the first fully autonomous human-sized hugging robot”. It features a custom sensing system called “HuggieChest” consisting of two inflated (膨胀的) parts to imitate a soft chest. But there’s a lot more than a soft chest to the HuggieBot 3.0. The advanced robot delivers hugs using a pair of arms mounted to a custom metal frame (框架) that were selected for being human-like, quiet, and safe. As a hug takes place, a pressure sensor and microphone inside the artificial chest detect human touch and begin transmitting data via a board to a Robot Operating System (ROS)-based computer located in the HuggieBot 3.0’s 3D-printed head.
The team used feedback from 512 real people over 32 trials to train a machine learning system. “The HuggieBot 3.0 can stay still, move slightly vertically (垂直地), tap or pat a person’s back and squeeze with-varying degrees of pressure The team wrote in a recent study.
Alexis E. Block started working on the original HuggieBot back in 2016. The first version was built on six “hugging commandments” to autonomously enter into and end a hug. The HuggieBot 2.0 took the project a step further by integrating sensing perception, but the 3.0 version is the most advanced version with five added hugging commandments to deliver a human, like hugging experience.
In a recent test, 12 participants who hugged the robot for longer declared that they felt it was “significantly nicer to hug” than previous ones.
The HuggieBot 3.0 isn’t perfect, and its creators point out that it isn’t quite like hugging a real person just yet, but they are already working on a fourth version that should come with improved hug positioning and techniques. They hope that one day HuggieBot will be able to take the place of the sensation of human bugging to perfection.
【小题1】What does the underlined word “trailblazers” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Trackers. | B．Protectors. | C．Pioneers. | D．Criticizers. |
| A．Its designing process. | B．Its main function. |
| C．Its working principle. | D．Its practical usage. |
| A．It works fully autonomously. | B．It perceives people’s senses. |
| C．It pats and squeezes a person gently. | D．It offers human life hugging experience. |
| A．Promising. | B．Far-reaching. | C．Profitable. | D．Uncertain. |
