Today robots are largely used in factories but lack capabilities to sense and perceive the environment. They can interact with the environment only using accurate models and are not allowed to interact with humans. Programming robots is therefore expensive and time-consuming, and their use limited to very specific applications. The goal of our research is to develop humanoid robots that are progressively more autonomous and can effectively work in unstructured environments, operating in close interaction and cooperation with humans.
At this aim the Humanoid Sensing and Perception group studies algorithms and technologies that allow robots to sense the environment and react appropriately. Our strategy is to exploit the capability of robots to learn under human guidance or from the interaction with the environment by exploiting multiple sources of information (e.g. proprioception, vision, touch, and audition). Our activities focus on computer vision, tactile sensing and the development of the software technologies for seamless interaction of perception and action.
Humanoid Sensing and Perception
Laboratories
We are one of the core groups that has been contributing to the development of the iCub robot. Our laboratories are equipped with four fully-fledged iCub robots and related computing equipment, HPC servers, a small machine shop, mechanical and electronic design facilities.
The team is composed of computer scientists and engineers with competences ranging from computer vision, signal processing, machine learning to software engineering.
We work in close collaboration with other departments in IIT (see below) and have formal and informal international collaborations.
Collaborations
Robotics is a strongly interdisciplinary field to achieve our goals we work in close interaction with other groups at IIT.
- Marco Maggiali, iCub Tech
- Chiara Bartolozzi, Event Drive Perception for Robotics
- Alessio Del Bue: Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision
- Lorenzo Rosasco: Laboratory for Computational and Statistical Learning
- Agnieszka Wykowska: Social Cognition in Human Robot Interaction
- Daniele Pucci: Dynamic Interaction and Control
People
Principal Investigator
Humanoid Sensing and Perception
- Openings
- Fellow position in Robotic software developer for human-robot collaborative tasks
- Post doctoral researcher in assistive robotics
- Research fellow on egocentric computer vision for task-guided prosthesis control
- Postdoctoral researcher, robot navigation in dynamic and human populated environments
Selected Publications
2022
Colledanchise M., Natale L.
Handling Concurrency in Behavior Trees
IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 38, (no. 4), pp. 2557-2576
2022
Ceola F., Maiettini E., Pasquale G., Meanti G., Rosasco L., Natale L.
Learn Fast, Segment Well: Fast Object Segmentation Learning on the iCub Robot
IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 38, (no. 5), pp. 3154-3172
2021
Colledanchise M., Natale L.
On the Implementation of Behavior Trees in Robotics
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 6, (no. 3), pp. 5929-5936