iCub, humanoid robot, Italian Institute of Technology
ET2014
ST Microelectronics booth
Published on Nov 20, 2014
Improvements of the iCub balancing
Published on Nov 15, 2014
This video shows some of the latest results achieved in the whole-body control of iCub, the humanoid robot of the Italian Institute of Technology. In particular, it shows the improvements of the balancing controller, which now optimizes the internal torques according to some bounds on the external wrenches (i.e. feet forces and torques). These bounds ensure that, for instance, the robot's feet do not slip even when performing highly dynamic tasks.
The results have been achieved by the researches working at the Italian Institute of Technology and, in particular, by those funded by the European Project CoDyCo, coordinated by Dr. Francesco Nori.
iCub Philosophy, Some History & Recent Results - video lecture by Prof. Giorgio Metta
Published on Dec 19, 2014
The iCub project was started 10 years ago within the field of Human Robotics, focused mostly on building models of cognitive behaviours. The goals of the project include understanding how the human brain resolves certain problems just to use this knowledge within robotics and build models that can allow robots to solve autonomously the same problems, hence become highly intelligent systems.
20 years ago neurophysiologists discovered special types of neurons called visuomotor neurons. This discovery triggered a shift in the way robots were programmed to learn and perceive as now, mirroring the function of these neurons, the goal was not only for the robot to perceive the surroundings but also to act upon the new information acquired, to carry out a task, solve a problem, imitate what a person would do when he or she perceives and processes external information.
To translate these goals into practice, first experiments where focused on registering human grasping actions via data gloves and trackers and then these registered actions, translated into images, were used to build a classifier which would aid the robot to predict better what action to carry out when perceiving certain information. Furthermore, neuro studies showing that it is not that important to recognise the object to be grasped it but it’s enough to recognise it’s shape, helped Prof. Metta and his team build models that prepared the robot to recognise the shape of an object just before executing an action like grasping it. This made possible for the robot to execute more complex behaviours such as recognise not only the objects to be grasped or pushed, but also to recognise tools which may help the robot to do something with the object in question. In one of the experiments lead by Prof. Metta, this was translated into an iCub grasping a tool to bring closer an object placed too far away from the robot, in order for the iCub to grasp it.
Watch Prof. Metta’s presentation to find out more about his amazing experiments using the iCub robot and what he’s latest research efforts are all about.
iCub balancing on one foot while interacting with humans
Published on Feb 24, 2015
This video shows the latest results achieved in the whole-body control of the iCub, the humanoid robot developed by the Italian Institute of Technology. In particular, it shows the performances of the balancing controller when the robot stands on one foot. The knowledge of the robot dynamics and the measurement of the external perturbations allow for safely interacting with humans as well as controlling highly dynamic motions.
The control of the robot is achieved by regulating the interaction forces between the robot and its surrounding environment. In particular, the force and torque exchanged between the robot's foot and the floor is regulated so that the robot keeps its balance even when strongly perturbed.
These new capacities will be pivotal when iCub will cohabitate with human beings in domestic environments. The results have been achieved by the researches working at the Italian Institute of Technology and, in particular, by those funded by the European Projects CoDyCo and Koroibot with Dr. Francesco Nori as principal investigator.
iCub balancing while performing goal directed actions: CoDyCo 2nd year validation
Published on Apr 22, 2015
iCub, the humanoid robot of the Italian Institute of Technology, can stand, balance perform goal directed actions while interacting with people. Thanks to the artificial skin, which equips the robot with 4000 sensitive contact points, the iCub's control system measures the external forces and properly regulate these interactions in order to keep the balance.
These new capacities will be pivotal when iCub will cohabitate with human beings in domestic environments. The results have been achieved by the researches working at the Italian Institute of Technology and, in particular, by those funded by the European Project CoDyCo, coordinated by Dr. Francesco Nori.
Interactive object learning on the iCub robot with Caffe libraries
Published on May 5, 2015
This video shows the new visual recognition capabilities of the iCub. Recognition mixes a classifier trained on top of the output of a deep convolutional neural network
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