Behold The Future...The iCub is the humanoid robot developed at IIT as part of the EU project RobotCub and subsequently adopted by more than 20 laboratories worldwide. It has 53 motors that move the head, arms & hands, waist, and legs. It can see and hear, it has the sense of proprioception (body configuration) and movement (using accelerometers and gyroscopes). We are working to improve on this in order to give the iCub the sense of touch and to grade how much force it exerts on the environment.
New life is being injected into the iCub platform through the development of force control. This new skill enables safe and gentle interaction of the robot with human teachers.
iCub grasping skills have been recently improved as a result of the Poeticon EU project. Simple actions such as grasping are combined through the use of spoken language tools developed by the Poeticon teams. In this example, the iCub pours cereals in a cup.
Lorenzo, the guy in the picture, is checking the new iCub before running a manipulation experiment. The iCub is being fitted with a capacitive skin system in the fingertips and palms that enables measurement of contact and the implementation of safe grasping strategies.
New visual skills of the iCub. Independent motion tracking for the iCub using optical flow. See how we can easily track objects or people that move independently of the iCub.
The iCub met the Italian President in 2010 during a visit to Genoa and IIT. Here the President is asking about the robot after receiving the latest IIT leaflet from the hand of the iCub. Also in the picture, Giorgio Metta, Giulio Sandini and Roberto Cingolani.
http://www.icub.org/index.php
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iCub HumanoidRobot Youtube Channel
The iCub is a humanoid robot shaped as a four years old child. It is available as an open system platform following the GPL license. The iCub was originally designed by a consortium of 11 partners guided by the Italian Institute of Technology, with background ranging from engineering to neurophysiology and developmental psychology, within the RobotCub Integrated Project funded by European Commission through its Cognitive Systems and Robotics Unit.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXBFWo4IQFkSJBfqdNrE1cA
