13 hours ago
See A Flying Humanoid Robot Achieve Liftoff For The First Time
iRonCub lifts off with the help of four jet engines, two mounted on its arms and two on a jetpack ... More attached to its back.
After two years of trial, error and persistence, an Italian robotics team finally watched as its humanoid bot did what it was designed to do — take to the air.
As the below video shows, the jet-powered robot named iRonCub (yep, that's an Iron Man reference) lifted off the ground about 1.5 feet while maintaining its stability. It's still early days in the prototype's flying career, but iRonCub's creators say its first flight this spring could pave the way for humanoid robots that switch between terrestrial navigation and aerial mobility when operating in extreme terrain and environments devastated by natural disasters.
'This first flight has been a long journey for us,' Daniele Pucci, director of artificial and mechanical intelligence at the Italian Institute of Technology, said in an email. Pucci co-authored a new research paper in the open-access journal Open Engineering detailing how the team modeled and controlled the robot's aerodynamics and validated their approach through wind tunnel experiments in which iRonCub hovered and performed controlled flight maneuvers amid high-speed gusts and extreme temperatures.
In wind tunnel tests at the DAER Aerodynamics Laboratory of Polytechnic of Milan, iRonCub stayed ... More stable amid high-speed, turbulent gusts.
Researchers worldwide are already focusing on multimodal robots that can adjust to their environments and access sites too hazardous or difficult for humans to reach. So what's the benefit of equipping such robots with human-like arms, legs and hands?
In emergency and disaster scenarios, many critical access points are built with human ergonomics in mind, including doors, gas valves, ladders, switches and handles, Pucci and fellow researchers Davidi Gorbani and Antonello Paolino said in a joint written response to my questions. 'A humanoid robot, therefore, is inherently well-suited to interact with these human-centric systems, navigating staircases, narrow corridors, or uneven terrains, and directly manipulating objects designed for human hands.'
iRonCub evolved from iCub, an earlier research-grade robot out of the Italian Institute of Technology that was designed to help develop and test embodied AI algorithms, and which currently is available for sale. iCub's flying cousin is equipped with AI-powered control systems — developed in collaboration with Gianluca Iaccarino's mechanical engineering group at Stanford University — and lifts off with the help of four jet engines, two mounted on its arms and two on a jetpack attached to its back.
With jet engines attached, the robot weighs around 154 pounds. To protect it from the force and heat produced by the engines, iCub got upgraded with a titanium spine and heat-resistant covers.
While the video shows iRonCub attached to a harness for safety and remaining comfortably close to terra firma, reaching this milestone posed significant design and engineering challenges. Its movable limbs complicate the aerodynamics, and gases emitted from the wind turbines exceed 1,200 degrees and flow at nearly the speed of sound.
'Controlling these robots in flight is fascinating yet dangerous, and there's no room for improvisation,' Pucci, Gorbani and Paolino said. 'The complexity of safely managing combustion, heat dissipation and high-speed airflow demands meticulous, multidisciplinary co-design strategies, simultaneously optimizing the robot's physical shape, materials, control algorithms and propulsion system placement.'
Next up for iRonCub will be further flight tests, some at the Genoa Airport, which is setting up a dedicated area for robo-flights where it can hopefully practice untethered liftoffs. The robot may not be Tony Stark yet, but the team envisions a day when we will see it flying over obstacles like floods and fires and landing safely amid unstable debris — like a real-life superhero.
