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iCub

Details

iCub is a child-size humanoid robot capable of crawling, grasping objects, and interacting with people. It's designed as an open source platform for research in robotics, AI, and cognitive science.

Creator
RoboCub Consortium and IIT
Country
Italy 🇮🇹
Year
2004
Type
Humanoids, Research
Creator
RoboCub Consortium and IIT
Country
Italy 🇮🇹
Year
2004
Type
Humanoids, Research

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Did You Know?

There are about 20 iCubs in various labs around the world, mainly in Europe (but one is in the United States).
The "cub" in iCub's name stands for cognitive universal body.

Specs

FEATURES
Open architecture. Equipped with an array of sensors for seeing, hearing, and touching. Body anatomy similar to that of a human child.
HEIGHT
104 cm | 40.9 in
LENGTH
N/A cm | N/A in
WIDTH
N/A cm | N/A in
WEIGHT
25 kg | 55.1 lb
SPEED
N/A km/h | N/A mph

SENSORS
Stereo cameras, gyroscopes, accelerometers, microphones, encoders, force-torque sensors, and capacitive tactile sensors (fingertips and upper body skin).
ACTUATORS
54 motors (150-W brushless motors for shoulders and other large joints and DC motors for hands and small joints).
POWER
Tethered, 12-V to 48-V power supply
COMPUTING
On-board systems include an Intel Core 2 Duo (main computer) and 20 microcontroller boards for motors, 16 boards for sensors, and a Pentium computer for data acquisition and synchronization. Off-board systems include a cluster with 30 to 40 cores and GPU processing.
SOFTWARE
Debian Linux on-board OS. Off-board systems include Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, and YARP (Yet Another Robot Platform) as software middleware for external cluster.
DEGREES OF FREEDOM (DOF)
54 (54 powered, 76 total)
MATERIALS
Mostly Ergal aluminum alloy, steel, and plastic.
COST
$300,000
STATUS
Ongoing
WEBSITE
http://www.icub.org

History

The RobotCub Consortium, funded in part by the European Commission's Cognitive Systems and Robotics program, started developing the humanoid iCub in 2004. The first version was released in 2008. New versions followed, upgrading the robot's head mechanics, upper-body skin, and sensing. Future versions will focus on bipedal locomotion. The RobotCub project is currently coordinated by Giulio Sandini and Giorgio Metta at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), in Genoa. Other institutions participating in the project include University of Genoa, Scuola Sant'Anna, University of Ferrara, Telerobot, University of Uppsala, University of Sheffield, University of Hertfordshire, IST, EPFL, and University of Zurich.