Robotic remedy pets get a starring position in Lightyear and in actual Life

Roboticists are engaged on real-world variations of Sox, a robotic companion in Lightyear, to play therapeutic roles.

Take a look at how Sox compares to actual world robotic cats (and different pet companions) in my Science Robotics article. Sox really checks off 4 of the necessities for an acceptable remedy companion robotic given in a 2021 paper by Koh, Ang, and Casey. The primary robotic cat NeCoRo has been unflatteringly described as “It’s like your deceased pet, that you simply had stuffed at a reduction taxidermist, got here again to life since you learn a passage from that dusty outdated e-book you discovered within the attic.” You may see simply how creepy it strikes and acts right here.

Sox is a superb place to begin to be taught extra about robotic design, see the matters web page on Robotic Design for extra scifi and naturally my books to be taught extra.