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The Cognitive Humanoids Laboratory is involved in several projects receiving external funding (EU Commission, industry, etc.). These form a network of collaborators including neuroscientists and developmental psychologists but also other leading scientists in Europe and worldwide.
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RobotCub, our flagship project, IIT became partner in 2007 and main actor in the development of the humanoid robot. RobotCub is a 5 years long project funded by the European Commission through Unit E5 "Cognitive Systems, Interaction & Robotics". Our main goal is to study cognition through the implementation of a humanoid robot the size of a 3.5 year old child: the iCub. This is an open project in many different ways: we distribute the platform openly, we develop software open-source, and we are open to including new partners and form collaboration worldwide. |
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YARP supports building a robot control system as a collection of programs communicating in a peer-to-peer way, with a family of connection types that meet the diverse, sometimes contradictory, and always changing needs of advanced robotics. We also encourage compilation and use of hardware devices in a future-proof way. Our strategic goal is to increase the longevity of robot software projects. |
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The ITALK project aims to develop artificial embodied agents able to acquire complex behavioural, cognitive, and linguistic skills through individual and social learning. This will be achieved through experiments with the iCub humanoid robot to learn to handle and manipulate objects and tools autonomously, to cooperate and communicate with other robots and humans, and to adapt to changing internal, environmental, and social conditions.
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The CHRIS project will address the fundamental issues which would enable safe Human Robot Interaction (HRI). Specifically this project addresses the problem of a human and a robot performing co-operative tasks in a co-located space, such as in the kitchen where your service robot stirs the soup as you add the cream. These issues include communication of a shared goal (verbally and through gesture), perception and understanding of intention (from dextrous and gross movements), cognition necessary for interaction, and active and passive compliance.
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Reproducing an act with sensorimotor means and using fine natural language for communicating the intentionality behind the act is what Aristotle called “Poetics”. POETICON is a research and development project that explores the “poetics of everyday life”, i.e. the synthesis of sensorimotor representations and natural language in everyday human interaction. This is related to an old problem in Artificial Intelligence on how meaning emerges, which is approached here in a new way. |
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eMorph is a three-year project funded by the Seventh Research Program (FP7) of the European Union. It involves 4 research groups in 3 countries. eMorph is one of several projects funded under the FP7 initiative on Embodied Intelligence. he goal of the eMorph project is to design asynchronous vision sensors with non-uniform morphology, using analog VLSI neuromorphic circuits, and to develop a supporting data-driven asynchronous computational paradigm for machine-vision that is radically different from conventional image processing.
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Roboskin will develop and demonstrate a range of new robot capabilities based on robot skin tactile feedback from large areas of the robot body. An investigation of these issues until now has been limited by the lack of tactile sensing technologies enabling large scale experimental activities, since so far skin technologies and embedded tactile sensors have been mostly demonstrated only at prototype stage. The new capabilities will improve the ability of robots to operate effectively and safely in unconstrained environments and also their ability to communicate and co-operate with each other and with humans.
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The ROBOT-DOC proposal aims at the establishment of an open, multi-national doctoral training network for the interdisciplinary training on developmental cognitive robotics. Developmental robotics is a novel approach to the design of cognitive robots that takes direct inspiration from developmental mechanisms studied in children. The ROBOT-DOC Fellows will develop a balanced mix of domain-specific robotics research skills and of complementary transferrable skills for careers in academia and industry.
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Most of today's robots have rigid structures and actuators which require complex software control algorithms and sophisticated sensor systems in order to behave adaptable, compliant, and safe in contact with unknown environments or with humans. Moreover, in terms of energy efficiency, peak force and speed, these robots are still considerably weaker than their biological archetypes. An alternative design approach is to build actuators with physically adjustable compliance and damping, which are able to store and release mechanical energy, react softly when touching the environment, and provide an intrinsic degree of safety, just like muscles do. This is the goal of Viactors.
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Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences 
