A Soft Robotic Interface for Chick-Robot Affective Interactions

TL;DR

This study introduces a soft robotic interface for chicks that uses thermal and visual stimuli to foster acceptance and interaction, providing a safe, controllable platform for animal welfare and research.

Contribution

It presents a novel animal-centered soft robotic interface with multimodal stimuli and a protocol for evaluating chick acceptance and interaction.

Findings

Chicks preferred warm thermal stimulation, increasing over time.

Face-like visual cues accelerated initial approach behaviors.

The breathing cue did not elicit preference or avoidance.

Abstract

The potential of Animal-Robot Interaction (ARI) in welfare applications depends on how much an animal perceives a robotic agent as socially relevant, non-threatening and potentially attractive (acceptance). Here, we present an animal-centered soft robotic affective interface for newly hatched chicks (Gallus gallus). The soft interface provides safe and controllable cues, including warmth, breathing-like rhythmic deformation, and face-like visual stimuli. We evaluated chick acceptance of the interface and chick-robot interactions by measuring spontaneous approach and touch responses during video tracking. Overall, chicks approached and spent increasing time on or near the interface, demonstrating acceptance of the device. Across different layouts, chicks showed strong preference for warm thermal stimulation, which increased over time. Face-like visual cues elicited a swift and stable preference, speeding up the initial approach to the tactile interface. Although the breathing cue did not elicit any preference, neither did it trigger avoidance, paving the way for further exploration. These findings translate affective interface concepts to ARI, demonstrating that appropriate soft, thermal and visual stimuli can sustain early chick-robot interactions. This work establishes a reliable evaluation protocol and a safe baseline for designing multimodal robotic devices for animal welfare and neuroscientific research.