ABSTRACT
Humans can identify the physical characteristic of the object in an instant just by touching it. They can easily distinguish whether the object is soft like a sponge, is rigid like an iron, has elasticity like a balloon, or is moving by itself. This chapter focuses on force interaction between robots and humans. In some application areas, so-called automation apparatuses were replaced by industrial robots because of their flexible and versatile abilities. This was the required role for robots in 20th century. With the help of visual processing and industrial sensing together with highly developed information processing, the application area of automation has been widened. However, there still exist many tasks that depend on human ability and cannot be executed by robots alone. Real-haptics technology can provide the touch sensation to the new robots to produce well-controlled force for achieving various tasks.
