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Rovables: Miniature On-Body Robots as Mobile Wearables

Authors:

Artem Dementyev,

Hsin-Liu (Cindy) Kao,

Joseph A. Paradiso,

Chris Schmandt,

Sean FollmerAuthors Info & Claims

UIST '16: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Pages 111 - 120

https://doi.org/10.1145/2984511.2984531

Published: 16 October 2016 Publication History

Abstract

We introduce Rovables, a miniature robot that can move freely on unmodified clothing. The robots are held in place by magnetic wheels, and can climb vertically. The robots are untethered and have an onboard battery, microcontroller, and wireless communications. They also contain a low-power localization system that uses wheel encoders and IMU, allowing Rovables to perform limited autonomous navigation on the body. In the technical evaluations, we found that Rovables can operate continuously for 45 minutes and can carry up to 1.5N. We propose an interaction space for mobile on-body devices spanning sensing, actuation, and interfaces, and develop application scenarios in that space. Our applications include on-body sensing, modular displays, tactile feedback and interactive clothing and jewelry.

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Cited By

Zhang ZLi JYan ZNishida JPeng H(2024)JetUnit: Rendering Diverse Force Feedback in Virtual Reality Using Water JetsProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676440(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676440
Ichihashi SKuroki SNishimura MKasaura KHiraki TTanaka KYoshida S(2024)Swarm Body: Embodied Swarm RobotsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642870(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642870
Lakhdhir SPerin CSomanath S(2024)Expressive Clothing: Understanding Hobbyist-Sewers' Visions for Self-Expression Through ClothingProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642338(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642338
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Rovables: Miniature On-Body Robots as Mobile Wearables
1. Human-centered computing

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

UIST '16: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 2016

908 pages

ISBN:9781450341899

DOI:10.1145/2984511

General Chairs:
Jun Rekimoto
The University of Tokyo
,
Takeo Igarashi
The University of Tokyo
,
Program Chairs:
Jacob O. Wobbrock
University of Washington
,
Daniel Avrahami
FXPAL

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 16 October 2016

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UIST '16

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UIST '16: The 29th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 16 - 19, 2016

Tokyo, Japan

Acceptance Rates

UIST '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 79 of 384 submissions, 21%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 561 of 2,567 submissions, 22%

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UIST '25

Sponsor:
sigchi
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The 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

September 28 - October 1, 2025

Busan , Republic of Korea

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Cited By

Zhang ZLi JYan ZNishida JPeng H(2024)JetUnit: Rendering Diverse Force Feedback in Virtual Reality Using Water JetsProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676440(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676440
Ichihashi SKuroki SNishimura MKasaura KHiraki TTanaka KYoshida S(2024)Swarm Body: Embodied Swarm RobotsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642870(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642870
Lakhdhir SPerin CSomanath S(2024)Expressive Clothing: Understanding Hobbyist-Sewers' Visions for Self-Expression Through ClothingProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642338(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642338
Chiu DNagpal RHaghighat B(2024)Optimization and Evaluation of a Multi Robot Surface Inspection Task Through Particle Swarm Optimization2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10611661(8996-9002)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10611661
Siemensma TChiu DRamshanker SNagpal RHaghighat B(2024)Collective Bayesian Decision-Making in a Swarm of Miniaturized Robots for Surface InspectionSwarm Intelligence10.1007/978-3-031-70932-6_5(57-70)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-70932-6_5
Sun SRuiz APirmoradi SVega K(2023)BioSparks: Jewelry as Electrochemical Sweat Biosensors with Modular, Repurposing and Interchangeable ApproachesAdjunct Proceedings of the 2023 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing & the 2023 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computing10.1145/3594739.3610787(315-320)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3594739.3610787
Saberpour Abadian AOtaran ASchmitz MMuehlhaus MDabral RLuvizon DMaekawa AInami MTheobalt CSteimle J(2023)Computational Design of Personalized Wearable Robotic LimbsProceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3586183.3606748(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3586183.3606748
Han CNakagawa YNaemura T(2023)Demonstrating Swarm Robots Capable of Cooperative Transitioning between Table and WallAdjunct Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3586182.3615763(1-4)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3586182.3615763
Rahman AAzim MHeo S(2023)Take My Hand: Automated Hand-Based Spatial Guidance for the Visually ImpairedProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581415(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581415
Yu TArakawa RMcCann JGoel M(2023)uKnit: A Position-Aware Reconfigurable Machine-Knitted Wearable for Gestural Interaction and Passive Sensing using Electrical Impedance TomographyProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580692(1-17)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580692
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