It’s probably the most sophisticated teddy bear ever designed, but that doesn’t stop MIT’s companion robot called “the Huggable” from being pretty adorable, as well.

Its main purpose is to enhance human relationships by functioning as a visual tool for long-distance communication.

The Huggable features more than 1500 sensors on its skin, along with quiet actuators, video cameras in its eyes, microphones in its ears, a speaker in its mouth, and an embedded PC with 802.11g wireless networking.

A grandparent, for instance, can enter text for the robot to speak via speech synthesis or command the robot to make various sounds, such as giggling.

view the person on the other end through the bear’s eyes

can be programmed to remember the faces of specific people

can recognize nine different classes of touch, such as tickling, poking, and scratching

further divided into six response types

the robot interprets the intent of the touch

and

how to respond