A person wearing a VR headset and haptic feedback gloves can control the iCub 3 robot and experience being somewhere else
By Chris Stokel-Walker
24 January 2024
iCub3 is a humanoid avatar that people can embody remotely
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
A humanoid robot can relay video and touch sensations to a person wearing haptic feedback gloves and a virtual reality (VR) headset hundreds of kilometres away, offering a way for people to attend events without travelling.
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The iCub 3 robot is a 52-kilogram, 125- centimetre-tall robot with 54 points of articulation across its aluminium alloy and plastic body. Its head contains two cameras where a human’s eyes would be, and an internet-connected computer where the brain would go. Along with the cameras, sensors covering its body send data to the robot’s “brain”. These sensations are then replicated on a suit and VR headset worn by a remote human operator.
A person wearing a VR headset and haptic feedback gloves can see and feel what the robot touches Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
When the operator reacts to what they see and feel, the suit’s sensors pick up the movements and the robot matches them. “The key is to translate every signal and bit of numeric data that can be sent through the network,” says Stefano Dafarra at the Italian Institute of Technology, who was part of the iCub 3 team. There can be a small delay of up to 100 milliseconds to capture and transmit the visual footage, but the operator can mitigate this by moving slightly slower than normal.