Meet the Floating Robot Companion Designed for Safe, Friendly Human Interaction

Inspired by animated flying friends like Tinker Bell, Mew and Studio Ghibli's Soot Sprites, a team of researchers set out to show what a floating robotic companion might be good for and how humans could interact with it. Led by Mingyang Xu from Keio University in Japan, with participation from other institutions like the MIT Media Lab, the team recently released a demo video.

Watch this: Soft Flying Robots Just Want to Be Friends

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The video shows a lighter-than-air robot with fins gliding through the air, making it look like a white, floating whale. It hovers without the loud whirr that accompanies most drones. Thanks to its light 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 feel both safe to interact with and emotionally engaging, because rigid designs and inorganic appearances can trigger the unsettling effect known as the uncanny valley -- the viscerally creepy feeling people get when something looks almost human, but not quite right.

Soft floating robots may have advantages over other designs when it comes to emotional connection and safe human-robot interaction.

Mingyang Xu/Keio University

Floating robots may circumvent that unease by replacing robotic facial expressions with gentle, full-body movements, and enabling safer human-robot interaction through a soft, pliable form.

The video demonstrated soft floating robots serving as a dance partner, study buddy, alarm clock, reminder and source of entertainment. To see the robot in action, check out the video in this article.