iCub

What it's for

The iCub is not a robot for work but a robot for thinking. It was built so that researchers could test how intelligence arises from the body: from movement, touch, seeing and making mistakes. It stands 104 cm tall and weighs 22 kg, roughly the scale of a young child, and has as many as 53 motors. The hands alone have 9 degrees of freedom (DOF) each, with touch sensors on the palms and fingertips.

A cognitive science lab. For cognition researchers, the iCub offers a child's proportions, touch in its fingers and the ability to program every joint. Cognitive science is an officially listed use: the manufacturer and our catalog name research on cognition as well as research on artificial intelligence and robotics.

Developmental robotics and learning through interaction. For more than two decades, the iCub has been Europe's reference point in this field. It emerged from the EU's RobotCub consortium, and its open-source nature lets groups in different countries compare results on the same hardware.

Work on hands and touch. A 9-DOF hand with touch sensors is material for a separate project. IIT also sells modules separately, the torso, head or hand, so a lab interested only in grasping does not have to buy the whole robot.

What the iCub does not do: it does not work in a factory, it does not carry loads (no payload is stated), and it is neither a consumer nor a commercial product. Our catalog does not confirm walking speed, runtime or battery. It is research equipment for institutions.

Who it's for

Makes sense for: universities and research institutes working on cognition, robot learning, human-robot interaction and touch. Teams that prefer a platform with an established place in science and a large body of publications over a novelty with uncertain documentation. Centers that can start by buying just a hand or a head.

Less suited to: companies looking for a robot to do work, secondary schools, private individuals. IIT sells only to institutional customers on individual order, via info@icub.org, with no online shop and no fixed price list. There is no commercial availability in Poland.

For Polish universities, this means the option of ordering research equipment on an individual basis, which requires a tender or a purchase from a grant. Plan for months for the quote, delivery and commissioning.

Deployments

The iCub is not commercially available here, and no Polish universities are assigned to it on record.

Worldwide, what is confirmed follows from the project's history: the iCub arose within the European RobotCub consortium and has been used for more than two decades in research on cognition and robotics. We do not list specific institutions, because we do not have them in sources at a level that allows verification.

We describe the landscape of research robotics in Poland in “Polish Robotics Companies” and “How to Start Learning Robotics in Poland”. When deployments confirmed by sources appear, we will fill in this section.

ergoCub is the successor to the iCub from the same institute: 150 cm, 55.7 kg, 10 kg payload, co-funded by INAIL for research on workplace ergonomics. If you are interested in physical human-robot collaboration rather than cognitive science, choose that one.

Reachy 2 (151 cm, 50 kg, 7-DOF arms, ROS 2 and LeRobot, about $70,000, ordered by email) is a mobile research torso that costs about 800,000 PLN (≈ EUR 183,000) less. It has no legs and not 53 motors, but it works very well for research on manipulation and artificial intelligence.

Unitree G1 (132 cm, 35 kg, 23 DOF, about 52,300 PLN (≈ EUR 11,960)) is a completely different philosophy: cheap, accessible and widely used at universities. If you do not need a hand with touch or the iCub's developmental character, it is an order of magnitude cheaper. TORO and LOLA are German research platforms for bipedal walking, but they are not sold commercially.

The iCub descends from the EU's RobotCub consortium and is developed by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa. For more than two decades it has been one of the longest-developed research humanoids in Europe and a reference point in research on cognition and robotics.

The platform is open source, which let successive labs take over the project and add their own research. We do not have launch dates for the individual generations, so we do not give them.

IIT is now also developing a successor, the ergoCub, designed for physical human-robot collaboration. The Italian insurer INAIL co-funded its development with 5 million euros over three years. The institute sells iCub hardware (the whole robot, torso, head, hand) and the R1 mobile manipulator, to order only, to research customers.