People usually find robots fascinating, especially when they look human like the iCub does. This outstanding example of the Italian progress in the fields of robotics, neuroscience and technology is the result of an EU-funded project started in 2004 at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, and it is now traveling the globe to show us its many abilities.
It was freed from its cage on the occasion of a special presentation at the Italian Cultural Institute on Wednesday, September 18: in the morning the iCub paid homage to Consul General of Italy Giuseppe Perrone; then it spent the afternoon playing with young visitors; and finally it performed in an impressive demonstration and interacted with guests of all ages.
The event was included in the second edition of “An Italian Month of Science”, the annual initiative promoted by the IIC in partnership with the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles and ISSNAF with the aim of “strengthening the relationship between Italian and American scientists, and acknowledging the contribution to global science by Italian researchers working abroad”, explains Director Alberto Di Mauro.
The common thread of this year’s edition – as shown by the exhibition “Italy of the Future” on display at the IIC until October 2 – is the employment of recent scientific discoveries and achievements to improve everyday life. In this framework, the humanoid robot iCub represents an example of the opportunities offered by the research in biotechnology and cognitive science in terms of future applications.
Professor Giorgio Metta – PhD in Electronic Engineering, Director of the iCub Facility at the IIT, and “dad” of the little robot – shared with us his fatherly ambitions: “The immediate goal of the project is the investigation of artificial intelligence, but in the long run the iCub might be mass produced and employed in both domestic and industrial sectors. Among them are housekeeping and surveillance, monitoring of health conditions, assistance for the elderly or disabled, as well as dangerous or delicate professions from nuclear or chemical contamination to food manipulation.”
Of course, further development of software components and algorithms is required for the robot to perform such complex tasks, and the better way to streamline the process is through international collaboration. Therefore the iCub platform has been made open source, enabling different laboratories all over the world to buy a robot and test on it their own softwares addressing different abilities from speaking to walking.
This shared research creates a fruitful exchange of information and ideas: “We are focusing on some essential aspects such as movement – by creating a flexible mechanism resembling human muscles -, visual and tactile object recognition through a large number of sensors, and machine learning in collaboration with the MIT in Boston. At the same time, other researchers are studying language learning, walking and running solutions, and even artificial emotional intelligence which means for the robot to behave on the basis of previous experiences. The next step will be to teach it more and more complicated tasks only through natural interaction with people and the environment. At present, this is the only platform able to achieve all of these objectives: it is the most complete humanoid robot ever built.”
The demonstration of the iCub’s abilities and the opportunity to “play” with him attracted a large public, especially young people, who were quite surprised to find science and technology in a cultural Institute. Yet the initiative “An Italian Month of Science” is exactly meant to prove that “such disciplines represent an important part of Italy’s – as well as every other country’s – culture”, as the Director of the IIC underlines. And he also reveals that next year’s edition will probably be dedicated to technology applications in different fields of art.
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