The iCub humanoid robot is an open-system, meaning both open-source and open-hardware, robotic platform developed in EU funded FP7 research projects. It provides (in our setup) a 41 degree-of-freedom (DOF) upper-body, comprising two arms, a head and a torso. The iCub is generally considered an interesting experimental platform for cognitive and sensorimotor development and embodied Artificial Intelligence research, with a focus on object manipulation.
Research & Outcomes
The overarching goal of my iCub related research is to create robots with more autonomous and more adaptive behaviours, leading to more `intelligent´ robots.
My research is focussed at the intersection between IDSIA's Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning) group and robotics.
My goal was to make the iCub see, that is, developing computer vision algorithms for object detection, identification and localisation.
Software Frameworks
Recently icVision, my modular computer vision system used in our cognitive robotics research, was released. Have a look at the project page if you are interested. It is an easy-to-use, modular framework performing vision related tasks on the iCub humanoid robot for research experiments.
LEOGrasper is now available as well. It is our light-weight, easy-to-use, one-shot grasping system for the iCub. It's been used extensively at IDSIA, especially for the IM-CLeVeR video.
Code
come back in a bit to find code here :)
In the meantime check here
Perception and Sensorimotor Coordination
We submitted a paper to the WCCI 2014 (IJCNN Special Session on Robot Vision) on our research about choosing actions to improve object detection in robotic vision. The video is here:
Intrinsically Motivated Agents (IM-CLeVeR)
My PhD is partly funded by the EU FP7 project IM-CLeVeR, which includes partners from CNR (in Rome), Universities of Ulster and Aberstwyth (UK). This project focusses on the iCub robot and how it can learn to interact with its environment.
At IDSIA we put a lot of work into making the iCub learn how to perform object manipulation.
Tele-operation of a Complex Humanoid
The operation of complicated advanced robot systems is not a trivial task. How an operator can perform certain tasks intuitively and without breaking the robot
We worked on this and are now able to control the iCub with a variety of input devices, using e.g. a LEAP motino device, a six-axis joy-pad or even a simple accelerometer (such as the one in your phone)!