By Emma Yann Zhang , Adrian David Cheok
This research looks into sharing intimacy and emotion in digital communication
through mediated physical interactions, kissing in particular. It aims to extend our
sense of touch by creating an interactive kissing machine that produces dynamic haptic
force feedback and other sensory stimuli to transmit realistic kissing sensations
over a telecommunication network. The research takes a novel approach to affective
communication by constructing a mathematical model of kissing, including the forces,
dynamics and bilateral control of the forces to enable remote kissing in a communication
system.
A multimodal interactive system for remote kissing interaction is developed. The
kissing device is designed as an attachment device for mobile phones, allowing users
to kiss each other remotely while having a video chat using their mobile phones. It
measures and transmits real-time lip pressure over the Internet. The device consists
of force sensors that measure the the contact force between the lip surface of the
device and the user’s lips, as well as a linear actuator array to produce accurate force
feedback and lip movements during user interaction. A bilateral force controller is
used such that both users feel the reflections of their own lip forces as well as the
forces from each other. The system also engages the sense of smell by emitting body
scents or pheromones from the device.
The system provides a new communication channel for people to share intimacy
and affection through remote physical interaction. It engages a wide spectrum of our
sensory modalities, including touch and smell, thereby increasing the sense of telepresence
and allowing for deep emotional exchanges. While face-to-face interaction is
not always available in this increasingly globalised society, this system also offers an
effective and intuitive way for parents and grandparents to communicate with young
children who have limited language abilities, as well as with people with physical disabilities
or communication disorders. The outcome of this research could also make a
great impact in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence. The digitisation of kissing
provides exciting opportunities for human-robot relationships or even robot-robot
relationships. Robots will be able to possess emotional intelligence and learn to understand
the emotional meaning and pleasure of kissing, hence establishing intimate
and humanistic relationships.