Alberto Parmiggiani1, Luca Fiorio2, Alessandro Scalzo3, Anand Vazhapilli Sureshbabu2, Marco Randazzo4, Marco Maggiali5, Ugo Pattacini2, Hagen Lehmann6, Vadim Tikhanoff3, Daniele E. Domenichelli2, Alberto Cardellino7, Pierpaolo Congiu8, Andrea Pagnin9, Roberto Cingolani1, Lorenzo Natale2, Giorgio Metta6
10:45 - 11:00 | Mon 25 Sep | Room 221 | MoAT17.2
In recent years the robotics field has witnessed an interesting new trend. Several companies started the production of service robots whose aim is to cooperate with humans. The robots developed so far are either rather expensive or unsuitable for manipulation tasks. This article presents the result of a project which wishes to demonstrate the feasibility of an affordable humanoid robot. R1 is able to navigate, and interact with the environment (grasping and carrying objects, operating switches, opening doors etc). The robot is also equipped with a speaker, microphones and it mounts a display in the head to support interaction using natural channels like speech or (simulated) eye movements. The final cost of the robot is expected to range around that of a family car, possibly, when produced in large quantities, even significantly lower. This goal was tackled along three synergistic directions: use of polymeric materials, light-weight design and implementation of novel actuation solutions. These lines, as well as the robot with its main features, are described hereafter.