This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of apply.

Rodyman-Feature

Fear of AI and robotics is fairly common in humans. At that place have been ample predictions virtually how the robot/AI revolution volition destroy an enormous number of jobs, while potentially posing an existential take a chance to the long-term survival of the human race. In the real world, however, our robot designs are much closer to a manufacturing robot on an assembly line than, say, Data (or even Bender). Case in betoken: Rodyman, the $2.9 million robot. For the past iv years, Professor Bruno Siciliano and Prisma Lab in Italy have been trying–and non entirely succeeding–to teach a robot how to make pizza.

"Preparing a pizza involves an extraordinary level of agility and dexterity," Professor Siciliano told Scientific American before this summer. Rodyman tin put toppings on a pizza, just it has real trouble with the dough, and has yet to primary the art of tossing without tearing the dough apart.

This project has a serious goal, despite the odd-seeming job. The entire indicate of the Rodyman project, as stated past Prisma Lab, is to create a "unified framework for dynamic manipulation where the mobile nature of the robotic system and the manipulation of non-prehensile not-rigid or deformable objects volition explicitly exist taken into account."

The Prisma Lab website continues:

Novel techniques for 3D object perception, dynamic manipulation control and reactive planning will exist proposed. An innovative mobile platform with a trunk, two lightweight arms with multi-fingered hands, and a sensorized head will exist developed for constructive execution of complex manipulation tasks, also in the presence of humans. Dynamic manipulation will be tested on an advanced demonstrator, i.e. pizza making process, which is currently unfeasible with the prototypes available in the labs. The inquiry results to be achieved in RODYMAN volition contribute to paving the way towards enhancing autonomy and operational capabilities of service robots, with the aggressive goal of bridging the gap between robotic and human task execution adequacy.

Rodyman

What does a robot similar on its pizza? MANCHOVIES. I'll exist here all week, folks. Photo by Prisma Lab.

Put more than only: The goal is to create a robot with vastly improved dexterity that can handle complex tasks that require a delicate touch. It'southward non hard to see how necessary such capabilities are if we ever want to build robotics that can deed as assist devices to the elderly, infirm, or physically disabled. The more than dexterity that can be built into the organization, the greater the range of tasks that robots will be able to perform.

The video above shows part of the preparation procedure. The video is in Italian and Google's Auto Translate subtitle characteristic is truly hilariously terrible, and so I recommend watching it without attempting to comprehend the audio. The gentleman making pizza while Rodyman imitates his movements is Enzo Coccia, a highly skilled pizzaiolo (pizza maker). Coccia wears a move capture suit while the robot observes him and attempts to copy his movements. Co-ordinate to Professor Siciliano, Rodyman has the power to learn from its mistakes and has improved over time, though it still can't manage the pizza dough trouble.

Rodyman is scheduled to make his debut at the Naples Pizza Festival (officially now the best thing ever) in May of 2022. Hopefully his issues will be ironed out by and then. If not, that $2.9 million funding grant from the European union will represent a lot of blown dough.