01762nas a2200133 4500008004100000245004400041210004400085490000700129520135200136653001301488100001501501700001801516856009401534 2015 eng d00aSocial Robotics and Societies of Robots0 aSocial Robotics and Societies of Robots0 v313 a

The sustainability of social robotics and other ambitious research programs

depends on the identification of lines of research that are coherent with its

visionary goals while satisfying more stringent constraints of feasibility and near-
term pay-offs. These multiple constraints are naturally conducive to the idea of a

society of robots operating within the physical environments of everyday human

life, developing there rich robot-robot social exchanges, and yet refraining from

any physical contact with human beings.

Achieving the visionary goals of social robotics or its more realistic objectives

requires extensive multidisciplinary cooperation. Accordingly, social robotics

may come to play a significant coordinating role for the constellation of research

communities in robotics. This coordinating role is exemplified here by reference

to a principled approach to robotic hand control based on sensory-motor soft

synergies: pursued in some current investigations on artificial hands, this

approach promises to meet distinctive needs arising in social robotics in the way

of dexterous manipulation of objects that are primarily conceived for human use.

10aRobotics1 aBicchi, A.1 aTamburrini, G uhttps://www.centropiaggio.unipi.it/publications/social-robotics-and-societies-robots.html