In the past two decades, there has been a continuous rise in the deployment of robots fulfilling social roles that expands across various industries such as guides, service providers, and educators. To establish robots as integral allies in daily life, it is essential for them to deliver positive and trustworthy experiences, achieved through seamless and satisfying interactions across diverse modalities and communication channels. In the realm of human-robot interactions, touch plays a pivotal role in facilitating meaningful connections and communication. To delve into the significance of haptic technologies and their impact on interactions between humans and social robots, an exploration of the existing literature is essential, since the research about touch is the most underrepresented between the other communication channels (facial expressions, movements, vocals etc). A systematic literature review has been carried out, identifying 42 articles with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), related to touch and haptic technologies and interaction between humans and social robots in the twenty years (2001 -2023). The results show the main differences, pros and cons between the materials and technologies that have been primary used so far, the qualitative and quantitative research that links the HRI touch studies with the human emotion and also the types of touch and repeatability of those methods. The study identifies research gaps and outlines future directions, while it serves as a guide for anyone who will be interesting in conducting HRI touch research or build a haptic system for a social robot.

翻译：过去二十年间，承担社交角色的机器人部署持续增长，其应用已扩展至导览员、服务提供者、教育者等多个行业领域。要使机器人成为日常生活中不可或缺的伙伴，关键在于其能够通过跨模态与多渠道的无缝顺畅交互，提供积极可信的体验。在人机交互领域，触觉对于建立有意义的连接与沟通具有关键作用。鉴于触觉研究在各类沟通渠道（面部表情、动作、语音等）中最为欠缺，为深入探究触觉技术及其对人类与社交机器人交互的影响，对现有文献进行系统性梳理至关重要。本研究采用系统综述和荟萃分析优先报告条目（PRISMA）方法开展系统性文献综述，筛选出2001至2023二十年间与触觉技术及人机社交交互相关的42篇文献。研究结果揭示了当前主流材料与技术的主要差异与优劣，将人机交互触觉研究与人类情感相关联的定性与定量研究，以及触觉类型与相关方法的可重复性。本研究不仅识别了当前研究空白并展望未来方向，亦可为有意开展人机交互触觉研究或构建社交机器人触觉系统的研究者提供指引。