Human Emotion-Mediated Soft Robotic Arts: Exploring the Intersection of Human Emotions, Soft Robotics and Arts

TL;DR

This work introduces human emotion-mediated soft robotic arts by mapping brain alpha-wave activity, captured via EEG, to the real-time control of two soft embodiments: a soft character and a soft flower. Using alpha-band power in $[8,13]$ Hz as an emotional proxy, the system processes data from the electrode at $Oz$ with a $1-40$ Hz bandpass and a $500$-point rolling window, extracting a normalized $A_{PSD}$ that drives both embodiments through distinct mappings: $S_{PWM}=\alpha A_{PSD}$ with $\alpha=2.55$ for the character and $y^{p}_{sp}=\beta A_{PSD}$ with $\beta=0.15$, plus timing relations $t_{inflation}=\gamma A_{PSD}$ with $\gamma=0.02$ for the flower. The experiments with a single participant demonstrate that calmer states (higher alpha) yield more vigorous robot motion or inflation, illustrating a new expressive medium bridging emotion, soft robotics, and art. While promising, the study is limited by its single-subject design, and future work should broaden participant diversity, incorporate multi-modal signals, and improve real-time performance for broader real-world applicability in galleries and interactive installations.

Abstract

Soft robotics has emerged as a versatile field with applications across various domains, from healthcare to industrial automation, and more recently, art and interactive installations. The inherent flexibility, adaptability, and safety of soft robots make them ideal for applications that require delicate, organic, and lifelike movement, allowing for immersive and responsive interactions. This study explores the intersection of human emotions, soft robotics, and art to establish and create new forms of human emotion-mediated soft robotic art. In this paper, we introduce two soft embodiments: a soft character and a soft flower as an art display that dynamically responds to brain signals based on alpha waves, reflecting different emotion levels. We present how human emotions can be measured as alpha waves based on brain/EEG signals, how we map the alpha waves to the dynamic movements of the two soft embodiments, and demonstrate our proposed concept using experiments. The findings of this study highlight how soft robotics can embody human emotional states, offering a new medium for insightful artistic expression and interaction, and demonstrating how art displays can be embodied.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Overview of the proposed concept: Human emotions through brain signals, the fusion of human emotions with art, and soft robotics with art have been reported; however, the intersection of these three fields has been largely under-explored. In this paper, we propose a concept of human emotion-mediated soft robotic art. We exploit advancements in human emotion detection via wearables, such as brain-computer interfaces, to enable dynamic and immersive art displays in galleries or museums through soft embodied art displays. As opposed to rigid counterparts, soft embodiments offer flexibility, fluid, lifelike movement, organic motions, and safety, allowing for close interactions. [The initial image of the art gallery/museum was generated with ChatGPT 4.0 (DALL-E) using the prompt: 'Draw an outline picture of a person looking at a wall with soft robotics art moving'.]
• Figure 2: (a) Soft character hardware system overview. (b) Hardware system overview of the soft flower as an art display.
• Figure 3: (a) Fabricated soft flower with detailed labeling. (b) The exploded view of the soft flower with each layer labeled. The hollow internal air chambers are also shown here.
• Figure 4: Experiment set-up (a) Soft character (b) Soft flower as an art display.
• Figure 5: The results are for the experiment conducted with the soft character. (a) Frequency vs PSD of the EEG alpha waves was selected at several instances when the system sent signals to the microcontroller (approximately every 1s). (b) The variation in the duty cycle values sent from the PC throughout the experiment. The black dotted lines show when the experimenter was instructed to open and close his eyes. The numbers associate the alpha waves with the red dotted lines (instances for alpha waves in Fig. 5(a))