Reports from the Heart of the Machine
Machine Heart Editorial Department
The iCub humanoid robot has been upgraded again, this time with remote control and perceptual interaction.
Back in 2011, we heard of a child-like iCub humanoid robot that looks like this (Figure 1 below, right):
In fact, the first version of iCub dates back to 2008, originally designed by a three-year-old, and now it should be a teenager. Recently, the original team, that is, researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), brought us a more advanced iCub 3 bipedal robot, compared to the original iCub, iCub 3 has grown a little taller, and is larger, stronger and heavier.
Figure 1: Larger iCub3 (left), original iCub (right)
The iCub3 is 25 cm (to 1.25 m) taller than the original iCub, has an increase of 19 kg (to 52 kg), has 54 degrees of freedom, has stronger legs, and mounts actuators on areas including the torso, shoulders, and legs. The iCub3 head is the same as the original iCub head, but the neck is a little longer, making the iCub3 proportions more coordinated.
In terms of sensors, the iCub3 has a depth camera and the latest generation of force sensing to withstand higher robot weights. The iCub3 has a higher capacity battery that sits inside the trunk assembly.
The iCub 3 head has a built-in stereoscopic rotating camera that can be used as an eye, and LED lines that reflect the movement of the mouth and eyebrows.
We can think of iCub3 as an avatar platform— that is, a humanoid robot that can embody a more biological type of remote humanoid robot.
In the demonstration from Genoa to Venice, the so-called iFeel system was used for remote control. The IIT wearable iFeel kit tracks the operator's body movements, and the avatar system transmits it to the iCub3 in Venice, which then moves like the researchers did in Genoa. In addition, users need to be equipped with a headset that can track their expression and eye movements. These head features are projected onto iCub3 and reproduced in high fidelity: avatars and humans have very similar facial expressions.
The user wears a sensor glove that tracks his hand movements while providing haptic feedback.
With the avatar system, remote users can smile, talk and shake hands with a guide in Venice: the avatar smiles, converses and shakes hands accordingly.
Similarly, the genoa operator can feel the hug when the guide embraces the avatar in Venice, thanks to IIT's iFeel suit, which also provides upper body touch. In addition, a dialogue between a remote user in Genoa and a guide in Venice is possible thanks to a system that records and transmits the operator's voice so that the avatar can reproduce it in Venice. Transmissions are transmitted over a standard fiber-optic Internet connection, producing only a few milliseconds of latency.
To accomplish the above functions, the equipment required includes:
HTC Vive PRO eye4 headset
VIVE Facial Tracker5
iFeel Sensory and Tactile Set
SenseGlove DK17 haptic gloves
Cyberith Virtualizer Elite 28 omnidirectional treadmill
All in all, all of these devices allow manipulation, movement, sound, and even facial expressions to be repositioned from humans to robots. Facial expression redirection is suitable for eye gaze and eyelid status as well as the user's mouth.
"Our iCub 3 avatar system was validated on a humanoid robot with legs, allowing for remote, nonverbal and physical interactions, making it the perfect starting point for finding a platform that simulates humans in all aspects of interaction." Daniele Pucci, project coordinator at IIT, said. "In the near future we can expect the application of this system in the so-called metaverse, which is actually a remote human incarnation."
Reference link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/icub-is-growing-up