iCub is a 1 metre tall open source robotics

humanoid robot A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other pu ...

testbed A testbed (also spelled test bed) is a platform for conducting rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of scientific theories, computational tools, and new technologies. The term is used across many disciplines to describe experimental rese ...

for research into human cognition and artificial intelligence. It was designed by the

RobotCub Consortium The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...

of several European universities and built by

Italian Institute of Technology The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) (in English: Italian Institute of Technology) is a scientific research centre based in Genoa (Italy, EU). Its main goal is the advancement of science, in Italy and worldwide, through projects and discoveri ...

, and is now supported by other projects such as ITALK. The robot is open-source, with the hardware design, software and documentation all released under the GPL license. The name is a partial acronym, ''cub'' standing for Cognitive Universal Body. Initial funding for the project was

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

8.5 million fro
Unit E5
– Cognitive Systems and Robotics – of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

Seventh Framework Programme The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europe ...

, and this ran for 65 months from 1 September 2004 until 31 January 2010. The motivation behind the strongly humanoid design is the embodied cognition hypothesis, that human-like manipulation plays a vital role in the development of human cognition. A baby learns many cognitive skills by interacting with its environment and other humans using its limbs and senses, and consequently its internal model of the world is largely determined by the form of the human body. The robot was designed to test this hypothesis by allowing cognitive learning scenarios to be acted out by an accurate reproduction of the perceptual system and articulation of a small child so that it could interact with the world in the same way that such a child does.

Specifications

The dimensions of the iCub are similar to that of a 3.5-year-old child. The robot is controlled by an on-board

PC104 PC/104 (or PC104) is a family of embedded computer standards which define both form factors and computer buses by the PC/104 Consortium. Its name derives from the 104 pins on the interboard connector ( ISA) in the original PC/104 specificatio ...

controller which communicates with actuators and sensors using

CANBus A Controller Area Network (CAN bus) is a robust vehicle bus standard designed to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other's applications without a host computer. It is a message-based protocol, designed originally for m ...

. It utilises tendon driven joints for the hand and shoulder, with the fingers flexed by

teflon Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. It is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemo ...

-coated cable tendons running inside teflon-coated tubes, and pulling against spring returns. Joint angles are measured using custom-designed Hall-effect sensors and the robot can be equipped with torque sensors. The finger tips can be equipped with tactile touch sensors, and a distributed capacitive sensor skin is being developed. The software library is largely written in C++ and uses

YARP YARP (Yet Another Robot Platform) is an open-source software package, written in C++ for interconnecting sensors, processors, and actuators in robots. See also * Kismet (robot) * iCub * Robot Operating System (ROS) * List of free and open sour ...

for external communication via Gigabit Ethernet with off-board software implementing higher level functionality, the development of which has been taken over by the RobotCub Consortium. The robot was not designed for autonomous operation, and is consequently not equipped with onboard batteries or processors required for this —instead an umbilical cable provides power and a network connection. In its final version, the robot has 53 actuated degrees of freedom organized as follows: * 7 in each arm * 9 in each hand (3 for the thumb, 2 for the index, 2 for the middle finger, 1 for the coupled ring and little finger, 1 for the adduction/abduction) * 6 in the head (3 for the neck and 3 for the cameras) * 3 in the torso/waist * 6 in each leg The head has

stereo camera A stereo camera is a type of camera with two or more lenses with a separate image sensor or film frame for each lens. This allows the camera to simulate human binocular vision, and therefore gives it the ability to capture three-dimensional ...

s in a swivel mounting where eyes would be located on a human and microphones on the side. It also has lines of red LEDs representing mouth and eyebrows mounted behind the face panel for making facial expressions. Since the first robots were constructed the design has undergone several revisions and improvements, for example smaller and more dexterous hands, and lighter, more robust legs with greater joint angles and which permit walking rather than just crawling.

Capabilities of iCub

The iCub has been demonstrated with capabilities to successfully perform the following tasks, among others: * crawling, using visual guidance with optic marker on the floor * solving complex 3D mazes * archery, shooting arrows with a bow and learning to hit the center of the target * facial expressions, allowing the iCub to express emotions * force control, exploiting proximal force/torque sensors * grasping small objects, such as balls, plastic bottles, etc. * collision avoidance within non-static environments, as well as, self-collision avoidance

iCubs in the world

These robots were built by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

and are used by a small but lively community of scientists that use the iCub to study embodied cognition in artificial systems. There are about thirty iCubs in various laboratories mainly in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

but also one in the United States. The first researcher in North America to be granted an iCub was Stephen E. Levinson, for studies of computational models of the brain and mind and language acquisition. The robots are constructed by IIT and cost about €250,000 each depending upon the version. Most of the financial support comes from the European Commission's Unit E5 or the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) via the recently created iCub Facility department. The development and construction of iCub at IIT is part of an independent documentary film called ''

Plug & Pray ''Plug & Pray'' is a 2010 documentary film about the promise, problems and ethics of artificial intelligence and robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction ...

'' which was released in 2010.''Plug & Pray''
documentary film about the social impact of robots and related ethical questions

References

External links

* - Nature article about the iCub.
YouTube Channel
- a YouTube channel about the iCub.
iCub presentations
- from the Humanoid robotics symposium 2010.
IROS'10
- Videos and workshop on iCub research (2010).
Toward Intelligent Humanoids
- Video showing current abilities of the iCub (2012) * * {{sequence , prev=

RobotCub iCub is a 1 metre tall open source robotics humanoid robot testbed for research into human cognition and artificial intelligence. It was designed by the RobotCub Consortium of several European universities and built by Italian Institute of ...

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Humanoid robot A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other pu ...

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