by Alexis E. Block, doctoral fellow with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems, 3 June 2021

If you’re anything like me, you have seen a dramatic decrease in the quantity and quality of hugs you’ve received from other people over the last year, and that has had some very adverse effects. Luckily, I’ve got one thing you haven’t got: A HuggieBot! For the last five years, I have been developing a human-sized hugging robot with visual and haptic perception that can deliver high-quality hugs to anyone who needs them any time they want them. When I began my research as part of my master’s thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, I could never have imagined the world we’re living in now. I only knew that I was living a 2.5-hour plane ride away from my family, whom I was missing desperately. 

Fast-forward several years, and my plane ride home has gotten considerably longer as I’m working towards my Ph.D. here at ETH Zurich, but missing and wanting to hug my family hasn’t changed.

After taking extreme measures to ensure the health and safety of both my participants and the experiment team, I recently finished running a large-scale user study with my robot. My goal was to recruit 50 healthy participants. I was shocked at the overwhelming amount of support and interest in my research. I quickly surpassed the number of participants I had hoped for, and even had a long waiting list. My email inbox and Facebook message requests were overflowing with people wanting to sign up. The pervasive sentiment expressed in all those messages and when I read their subject lines was “it’s been so long since I last hugged someone.”

As humans, we have an innate need to give and receive affective, social touch. This past year has been challenging for everyone; the lack of social touch and increased isolation has compounded the issue. Research shows that the absence of hugs in our daily lives can negatively affect our emotional well-being. It can result in depression and mental health problems, lower pain thresholds, lower self-esteem, and an inability/difficulty in forming relationships.

For the last year we have been hearing about the importance of maintaining our “social distance,” be that 6 feet for us Americans, or 2 meters as I’ve gotten used to since living here in Europe. I urge the greater ETH community members to make a slight shift in our language and mindset. Please continue to do your best to maintain “physical distance,” but now more than ever, it is imperative to remain “socially close.”

Check in on your friends and family members as you have undoubtedly been doing. But what about your neighbours you only see in passing? What about the international student you had a class with last semester who doesn’t really know anyone? What about the people who moved to ETH during the pandemic and haven’t been able to make friendships yet?

I consider myself to be extremely lucky. While I haven’t been able to hug my friends and family nearly as much as I would have liked during the past year, I am comforted because I know I can go into the lab any day, any time, and get as many hugs as I want or need. To me, the best thing about hugging a robot is the lack of social judgment. The robot doesn’t care how long you need to be held or how tightly you squeeze it. It will hug you for as long as you need and only release you when you’re ready.

When things go back to normal, how long will it take for hugs to return? Will people still be frightened to be that physically close for prolonged periods? Perhaps, a hugging robot may be just the thing we need to tide us over in these trying times. Don’t believe me? Come try it yourself!

Link

Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems

About the author

Alexis E. Block is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and her master’s degree in Robotics from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a doctoral fellow with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. She works with Dr. Otmar Hilliges, Dr. Roger Gassert, and Dr. Katherine Kuchenbecker.

by Nicole Perez, Foresight Strategist and Innovation Designer, 20 May 2021

I recently started my new position at ETH Zurich as a Foresight Strategist and Innovation Designer. Currently, I am working on the RETHINKING LIVING project. RETHINKING LIVING convenes scientists, industry experts and outstanding global thinkers from ETH Zurich and across the world. Together, we re-think our conceptions of living, re-evaluate life choices, and re-consider the changes we would like to see in the world of tomorrow.

One aspect in this debate is the relationship between man and machine. What are the possibilities for the future? How can new forms of machines help us overcome physical barriers to move in unexplored regions, bring a new dimension of social inclusion, and expand our ability to tackle challenges of the future?

MY START WITH MISBEHAVING (RO)BOTS

How man and machine relate to each other has been on my mind since I was a student. At the University of Central St. Martins in London, for my master’s thesis I chose the topic: MISBEHAVING (RO)BOTS.

Some experts in the field of machines believe that even the most primitive and basic of human needs, such as love and intimacy, could take place with non-human partners. However, much of the current research into this still very new field, often neglects the importance of the “unnecessary“ and “irrelevant“ aspects of human relationships. Relationships don`t necessarily grow from perfection, but from loving the flaws of a partner.  With MISBEHAVING (RO)BOTS, I mimicked the often overlooked frustrating, annoying and not always entirely enjoyable aspects of everyday human interactions. After all, in order to be loveable, non-human partners would need some flaws.

I look forward to be able to continue working on the relationship between man and machine at ETH Zurich, which is deeply involved in the development of machines and artificial intelligence. And of course ETH is engaged in many research projects. Some of them I would like to present here.

ROBOY HELPS TO UNDERSTAND OURSELVES

The vision of building human-like robots has been with humanity for a long time. What these robots could be like is demonstrated by the robots from ROBOY, which are built in Munich, in cooperation with the ETH. ROBOY robots imitate the human body with muscles and tendons, just as we have. This enables softer motions, safer robots and also better understanding of how we control our bodies.

ROBOY machines not only impress with a compliant, musculoskeletal robotic system, they can also interact with real people. For this the team developed its own cognitive system with speech-to-text and text-to-speech functions, as well as a memory system. The system is designed to provide enough autonomy to give answers in all situations, but also to ensure structured dialogues for public displays.

CYBATHLON CHAMPIONS INCLUSION

ETH Zurich is supporting how machines can drive inclusion with the CYBATHLON. CYBATHLON is a unique championship in which people with physical disabilities compete against each other to complete everyday tasks using state-of-the-art technical assistance systems. Beyond the competition, the CYBATHLON offers a platform to advance research in the field of assistive technology and to promote the dialogue with the public about the inclusion of people with disabilities in everyday life.

NANO AND MICRO MACHINES HAVE A HUGE IMPACT

And last but not least, I would like to present a project in which ETH Zurich is supporting how machines can advance medicine. After all, machines don’t have to be big to be effective. The team around Brad Nelson from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems is researching nano and micro machines, with the smallest possible motors and propellers.

These are designed to move intelligently to deliver drugs precisely to specific points in the body in a way that has not been possible before.

This is only a small snapshot of what goes on at ETH Zurich in this exciting field, and I am very pleased to be able to participate in RETHINKING LIVING, together with the Foresight Team at ETH Zurich. Perhaps we can make tomorrow’s life a little better.

About the author

Hi, my name is Nicole Perez. I have a background in design and foresight and I‘m an international designer, futurist and interdisciplinary thinker who likes to connect different fields of practice. My work lays at the intersection of science, technology and culture.   

I joined ETH Zurich’s Strategic Foresight Hub as a Foresight Strategist and Innovation Designer. Before that, I worked at Arup’s Foresight Think Tank in Berlin.  For the last couple of years, I have been responsible across industries to identify drivers and future developments to support the creation of new strategies, new innovation processes and prototypes.

by Giacomo Valle, Postdoctoral Researcher, 11 February 20201

I am Giacomo Valle, a neural engineer and one of the inventors of MYLEG. Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the NeuroEngineering Laboratory of Professor Stanisa Raspopovic at ETH Zurich.

My passion is the research of connecting the human nervous system with bionic limbs. Striving to close the gap between humans and machines, this research combines the knowledge of neuroscience and medicine, as well as engineering and artificial intelligence, with the fundamentals of psychology. The research aims to create prosthetic limbs that utilize the body’s complex senses and nervous system to restore sensory-motor functions lost after an injury or a disease.

I am the manager of the Swiss Neurolegs team from ETH Zurich participating and winning the silver medal in Cybathlon 2020 Global Edition. The CYBATHLON of ETH Zurich is  an incredible competition where different people with a physical disability compete not in races based on speed or strength as in the ordinary Olympics, but in performing daily-life activities using the most advanced assistive technologies in the world (both research prototypes and devices already available on the market). Beyond the competition and the challenge, CYBATHLON is a unique event that promotes scientific and technological research in the biomedical sector. Furthermore, CYBATHLON increases the awareness of society towards the daily difficulties and challenges faced by people with motor disabilities, highlighting the importance of social inclusion and technological research in this field.

Neurolegs is made up of scientists, researchers and students from different fields, and by combining forces we want to create a tool that can effectively help the user in everyday life. By participating in the CYBATHLON, our team hopes to get closer to that goal. But what is crucial for us is that it’s not an athletic competition nor is it about top athletes winning; it’s about people with disabilities in everyday life.

Our team has set itself the goal of restoring the superficial sensory feedback for a missing leg by means of portable sensors that can be fitted to shoes. It is a non-invasive and non-permanent technical approach that can be applied to any commercially available solution. Indeed, the lack of sensory feedback is a major factor why many don’t want to use prostheses. By providing this feedback, we want to increase confidence in the mobility of and acceptance for prostheses.

“I left my office for a tour on my Harley, expecting to return to work the next morning – but I didn’t return until eight months later,” Stefan (the pilot of the NeuroLegs team) says. In city traffic, a car suddenly drove out of a queue into his lane, hit him on his motorbike and crushed his left leg.

Relatively quickly, Stefan found a way to cope with his new situation, including the fact that the accident was someone else’s fault: “I lost a lot of blood and was unstable at first. My leg had to be amputated at the knee. I quickly overcame the phase of ‘could it have gone differently?’ and learned to accept my fate.”

Since 1996, Stefan has been an entrepreneur and headhunter in marketing and communications. He often acts as a consultant and mentor for people who are looking for a career change. In his spare time, he plays wheelchair tennis. He was a tennis player before, but getting the timing right with his wheelchair was a new challenge.

“The accident is one of the reasons why I’m so active today. I enjoy tackling and achieving new things and being able to determine my own life. That’s one of the reasons why I’m competing at the CYBATHLON,” Stefan says.

Thanks to the ETH startup ecosystem and to the support of Innosuisse, this research project is now moving from research to the society. This could be possible only in an environment in which an efficient and supportive technology transfer is combined with outstanding scientific innovations.

Because, it is not only important to have good ideas but also how to implement them in something real able to improve our life’s quality. In particular, important funding schemes are helping swiss inventors to make a nice dream a reality. This was also the case of MYLEG that won the BRIDGE Proof of Concept 2020 award translating research in a successful business idea.

With the growth of the micro-techniques and the computer simulations, the implantable neuro-technologies will be literally become part of us. Indeed, the direct connection of the human brain with all the technologies around us is also the aim of famous companies such as Neuralink and Facebook. Of course, this metamorphosis of the human being, thanks to the connection with the machines, will raise additional crucial points. Ethical, legal and social questions have to be taken into account. The connection of humans and machines through brain-computer-interfaces (BCIs) surely requires further attention.

Links

LinkedIn: https:/www.linkedin.com/in/giacomo-valle-a1407794/

Twitter: @giacomo_valle

Website ETH Laboratory: https://neuroeng.ethz.ch/

MYLEG website: www.my-leg.com

Video of CYBATHLON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btwcB-IHOcU&feature=youtu.be

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42430895

About the author

Giacomo Valle is a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich and a Neural Engineer