Zoomorphic Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) offer an alternative source of social touch for individuals who cannot access animal companionship. However, current SARs provide only limited, passive touch-based interactions and lack the rich haptic cues, such as warmth, heartbeat or purring, that are characteristic of human-animal touch. This limits their ability to evoke emotionally engaging, life-like physical interactions. We present a multimodal tactile prototype, which was used to augment the established PARO robot, integrating thermal and vibrotactile feedback to simulate feeling biophysiological signals. A flexible heating interface delivers body-like warmth, while embedded actuators generate heartbeat-like rhythms and continuous purring sensations. These cues were iteratively designed and calibrated with input from users and haptics experts. We outline the design process and offer reproducible guidelines to support the development of emotionally resonant and biologically plausible touch interactions with SARs.

翻译：动物形态的社会辅助机器人（SARs）为无法获得动物陪伴的个体提供了一种替代性社交触觉来源。然而，当前的社会辅助机器人仅能提供有限、被动的基于触觉的交互，且缺乏如温暖、心跳或呼噜声等丰富触觉线索，而这些线索正是人与动物间触觉互动的特征。这限制了它们唤起情感投入、逼真物理交互的能力。我们提出了一种多模态触觉原型，该原型用于增强已建立的PARO机器人，通过集成热反馈与振动触觉反馈来模拟感知生物生理信号。一个柔性加热界面提供类体温的温暖感，而嵌入式致动器则产生类心跳节律与持续的呼噜感。这些线索在用户与触觉专家的反馈下进行了迭代设计与校准。我们概述了设计过程，并提供了可复现的指导原则，以支持开发具有情感共鸣与生物学合理性的社会辅助机器人触觉交互。