Seminar - Giorgio Metta Jan.27
A seminar will take place in the the Nano building, Rooms 116-118, at 12 noon on Friday, January 27, 2012. The talk will feature Giorgio Metta presenting on The iCub Project: an Open Source Platform for Research in Embodied Cognition. Lunch will be provided.
The iCub Project: an Open Source Platform for Research in Embodied Cognition
Giorgio Metta
IIT
Abstract:
I will describe the iCub project, an endeavor supported mainly by the European Commission to develop a common platform for researchers interested in the study of artificial embodied cognitive systems. The iCub is a humanoid robot of the approximate size of a three years old child, equipped with sensors ranging from cameras, microphones, inertial, force and tactile and distributed fully under the GPL license. It is adopted by about 20 laboratories worldwide and a variety of research is carried out often in collaboration. A support middleware favors sharing of software modules and complex behaviors. I will detail the philosophy behind the iCub design, the approach taken by my group for the development of embodied cognitive skills on the iCub, and how the use of a common platform might in the long run affect research in robotics.
Bio:
Giorgio Metta is senior scientist at the IIT and assistant professor at the University of Genoa where he teaches courses on anthropomorphic robotics and intelligent systems for the bioengineering curricula. He holds a MS with honors (in 1994) and PhD (in 2000) in electronic engineering both from the University of Genoa. From 2001 to 2002 he was postdoctoral associate at the MIT AI-Lab where he worked on various humanoid robotic platforms. He is assistant professor at the University of Genoa since 2005 and with IIT since 2006.
Giorgio Metta research activities are in the fields of biologically motivated and humanoid robotics and in particular in developing life-long developing artificial systems that show some of the abilities of natural systems. His research developed in collaboration with leading European and international scientists from different disciplines like neuroscience, psychology, and robotics.
Giorgio Metta is author of approximately 100 publications. He has been working as principal investigator and research scientist in several international and national funded projects. He has been reviewer for international journals and the European Commission.