AILA

A white humanoid robot with a female appearance including a bob hairdo and the appearance of wearing a dress.. — A robot with a stylish hairdo. Photo: DFKI

AILA is a humanoid robot used by researchers to study mobile manipulation, robot perception, and AI. It's learning to perform tasks in human environments and training to become an astronaut.

Creator

DFKI Robotics Innovation Center

Year

2010

Country

Germany 🇩🇪

Categories

Features

A 360° spin of a white humanoid robot with a female appearance, including a bob hairdo and the appearance of wearing a dress. — See a 360° view of AILA. Photos: DFKI

More interactives

Did you know?

AILA stands for Artificial Intelligence Lightweight Android.

A white humanoid robot reaches a hand towards the camera. — "Need a hand, human?" Photo: DFKI

AILA wants to be an astronaut. Video: DFKI

History

Frank Kirchner started building legged robots as a tool to study machine learning and artificial intelligence in the 1990s, first as a researcher at the University of Bonn, Germany, and later at Northeastern University, in the United States. Now the head of the Robotics Innovation Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Kirchner created the humanoid AILA to investigate robotics control, cognition, and learning in real-world environments. The goal is to use AILA to explore systems with increasing complexity, in terms of both mechanisms and algorithms. Among the upgrades planned for AILA is giving it something it still doesn't have: a pair of legs.

A man and a robot look each other in the eye. — AILA and its creator, Frank Kirchner. Photo: DFKI

Specs

Overview: Equipped with a six-wheel mobile base. Able to create maps and navigate autonomously. Lightweight arm able to lift up to 8 kg (17.6 lb).
Status: Inactive
Year: 2010
Website: robotik.dfki-bremen.de/en/research/robot-systems/aila
Width: 75 cm
Height: 173 cm (including mobile base)
Length: 115 cm
Weight: 97 kg
Speed: 8 km/h
Sensors: Head with two cameras. Torso with short-range laser scanner and 3D time-of-flight camera. Arms with two six-axis force/torque sensors. Hands with tactile sensors. Mobile base with two long-range laser scanners.
Actuators: 14 brushless DC motors for the arms, 4 linear dc motors for the torso, 12 motors on the wheels, 2 servos for the head.
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 50 (Head: 2 DoF; Arm: 7 DoF x 2; Hand: 9 active DoF x 2; Torso: 4 DoF; Mobile base: 12 DoF)
Materials: Carbon fiber, aluminum, steel.
Compute: Three embedded PCs with dual core CPUs for motion control, navigation, and vision processing. Each arm joint with custom FPGA-based controllers.
Software: Linux OS and custom software based on ROS (communication layer), ROCK (middle layer), and Roby (high level).
Power: 48-V 4.5-Ah nickel-metal hydride battery, 0.5 hour of operation.