Congratulations to Mr. Jingjun Liu, student of Prof. Darwin Lau, on winning the Best Poster Award at the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch 2025 (IASAT 2025)!

Awardee: Mr. Jingjun Liu (Ph.D., MAE)

Supervisor: Prof. Darwin Lau

Poster Title: The Soft Palm Robot – A Novel Approach to Deliver Gentle Stroking Touch

Project Information:

Gentle stroking brings pleasant and calming feelings to human and has been shown to alleviate stress, reduce pain, and benefit nerve development. In neurology, C-tactile (CT) fibers can be activated especially when a stroke is delivered at typical position such as forearm with a velocity of ~3cm/s. Although interest in the effects of stroking has grown, current stimulation methods often lack the ability to deliver controlled, human-like touch that effectively targets CT fibers. This project presents a robotic system designed to simulate human-like gentle stroking of the forearm with high precision and control.

The robotic system consists of an elastic robotic palm as the touch interface. The elastic palm is 3D-printed with TPU95 and has a pre-bent shape that mimics human palm when delivering gentle stroke. A two-axis linear rail system is assembled to deliver large-scale horizontal and vertical movements. The robotic palm can deform into various shapes and conforms to the shape of human forearm. Human experiments have shown that this robot is capable of delivering comfortable stroke to human and excite CT fibers.

This project is collaborated with Prof. Annett Schimir in University of Innsbruck, Austria (UIBK). The team consists of Jingjun Liu from MAE of CUHK and Dr. Xiaoqin Cheng from UIBK.

Mr. Jingjun Liu (Ph.D., MAE)