It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the first flying humanoid bot!
Researchers from the Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia (IIT) unveiled iRonCub3, the world’s first humanoid robot for disaster relief.
The machine looks like a prototype version of Iron Man’s suit with its arm-mounted jet thrusters.
They generate a maximum thrust of over 1,000N and produce exhaust temperatures that exceed 600°C.
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The Italian researchers believe flight will add numerous applications for iRonCub, such as disaster relief and other advanced missions.
The first flying humanoid robot’s features
The official IIT website says it created iRonCub based on aerial humanoid robotics principles – aerial locomotion, contact locomotion and manipulation.
Article continues after this advertisement- Aerial locomotion to perform outdoor inspection and to move from one building to another.
- Contact locomotion to perform indoor inspection and climb stairs.
- Manipulation to open doors, move objects and shut off valves.
The humanoid form offers contact locomotion and manipulation capabilities. Also, the researchers added multiple accessories like a full-body skin, cameras, microphones to improve its dexterity.
In 2021, the researchers started experiments to add aerial locomotion. Eventually, they added four jet engines, two on each arm and two on a rear jetpack.
The flying humanoid robot used to catch fire and explode due to engine exhaust. Consequently, they incorporated a new titanium spine and heat-resistant covers.
The latest iRonCub version weighs approximately 154 lbs (70 kg), generates a maximum thrust of over 1,000 N, and produces exhaust temperature that can exceed 600°C.
Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia researchers also implemented software upgrades so that the robot can smoothly transition between walking and flying.
These improvements include a momentum-based trajectory planning algorithm and Quadratic Programming optimization.
Overall, these features allow the researchers to test tasks previously unexplored in robots, such as disaster relief.
