I'm back this afternoon from the second Innovation Robotic Summit in Lyon (14-16 march 2012). The spring weather was so beautiful and we had a very good time among many walking, talking, singing, dancing, wandering robots. There was many very interesting robots or exoskeleton (like Cyberdyne's HAL or Deloite's Hercule for the french Defense). I made a huge number of photos and videos of these robots, and I hope to be able to make some of them available on the web.
However, among all these big and small robots, my preference definitely goes to the iCub humanoid. While most robots were presented, it must be said, in demo mode or remotely operated, the demonstration at the booth of the « Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia » was one of the few that was a true cognitive experiment. The iCub is the humanoid robot developed at IIT as part of the EU project RobotCub and subsequently adopted by more than 20 laboratories worldwide. The iCub platform has as its aim the replication of the physical and cognitive abilities of a 3 year and half old baby. This « baby » robot acts in a cognitive scenario, performing the tasks useful to learning, interacting with the environment and humans.
Thanks to all people of Innoecho (the organizer) with a special thank to Catherine Simon and Beryl Breas. See you next year! (March 20-22 2013).
