Despite advances in robotics that produced such realistic robo-pets like Paro, the robo-seal, many robo-pets are still hindered because they don't look or act like real pets. However a team from the University of British Columbia is set to make robo-pets more realistic with a smart fur that can allow robo-pets to sense their owners' emotional state.

The robo-bunny developed by researchers from UBC can sense the users' emotions and can stiffen or relax its ears if the need arose. The robo-bunny can calm down its owner or even cheer them up by leading them through deep-breathing exercises. Unfortunately users of the robo-bunny will have to be wired up to biometric sensors for the robo-pet to sense their emotional moods.

"You can't seriously expect kids to be wired up with sensors while they're using this," said Karon MacLean, a professor of computer science at UBC and the leader of the lab in which the bunny was developed.

To solve this problem the team had to devise a way for the pet to sense its owner without using the biometric sensors. Graduate student Anna Flagg hit on the solution with the "smart fur" which can tell the difference between a pet, a scratch and 30 other gestures.

"The end goal of this would be to try to infer a person's emotional state, given how they're touching the fur," Flagg said.

The robot rabbit was actually a theoretical experiment by Ph.D. student Steve Yohannon who was looking into the language of touch. Flagg's experiment shows that several volunteers had similar ways of petting the fur sensor that the system was able to recognize it and tell the difference.

The robot rabbit was proven to be hit with the test subjects: children with anxiety disorders and children on the autism spectrum. The researchers are planning more tests with the smart fur and soon they'll integrate it with the pet rabbit. MacLean is planning to study the robot's affect on kids about to undergo surgery.

"We have ideas for adults. Probably not a 20-pound robot, but your cellphone could do this. It would be interesting to have a little companion with me that could see when I'm becoming stressed and help guide my breathing, and maybe even notice it's happening before I notice it. We're wondering how this [effect] scales, if it's breathing in your pocket instead of in your lap."

The smart fur is being demonstrated at the 2012 IEEE Haptics Symposium on March 4 to 7 in Vancouver.