If you’ve ever longed to feel your own gentle caress, long no more. Produced by the Kajimoto Laboratory at Tokyo’s University of Electro-Communications, the Sense-Roid is electronic apparatus consisting of two sensor-filled jackets and a mannequin that allows the user to feel the sensation of hugging him or herself.

When the user hugs the jacket on the mannequin, sensors on the manequin’s jacket pick up the pressure, location and sequence of the user’s touch. This information is then fed back to the user who subsequently feels equal pressure applied to the corresponding locations on his own jacket. For example, if the user squeezes the mannequins left shoulder blade, the user then feels a squeeze of equal pressure on his own left shoulder. This is done by increasing and decreasing air pressure in the jacket, an effect that is similar to inflating and deflating a blood pressure cuff.

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