The Fourier Intelligence GR-2 humanoid robot arrived at the University near the end of the spring semester, and the robotics team has been hard at work developing software that enables the humanoid to complete household tasks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow with the combination of new, fantastic hardware and the technology that AI is offering us, it\u2019s quite astonishing what we can do,\u201d said\u00a0Ubbo Visser, a professor in the\u00a0Department of Computer Science\u00a0who leads the robotics program. \u201cWe\u2019re all excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
This summer, the RoboCanes team was one of only 24 worldwide to qualify for the\u00a0RoboCup@Home league<\/a>, an international robotics competition in which robots compete in tasks like folding laundry and\u00a0welcoming guests to a party. The team had the top-performing adult-sized robot in the league and was the only one from the Americas that was able to compete using a humanoid.<\/p>\n These accomplishments are especially notable because this was the first year humanoid robots competed in the RoboCup@Home league. In previous years, the teams used smaller, wheeled robots like the\u00a0Toyota Human Support Robots<\/a>\u00a0the RoboCanes team has employed in past competitions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole team was really excited about getting to know this humanoid and getting to work on it,\u201d said\u00a0Katarzyna Pasternak<\/a>, a Ph.D. student studying human-robot interactions who serves as the team leader.<\/p>\n In addition to Pasternak, the team includes Ph.D. students\u00a0Christopher Duarte<\/a>,\u00a0Shengxin Luo<\/a>,\u00a0Julio Ojalvo<\/a>, and\u00a0Dewan Tauhid Rahman<\/a>, along with recent graduate\u00a0Simon Jaimes<\/a>, who completed his bachelor\u2019s degree in May.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s RoboCup competition showed how quickly the field is advancing.<\/p>\n \u201cWith all of the large language models and visual language models that boomed in the last few years, a lot of things moved forward,\u201d\u00a0Pasternak\u00a0said. \u201cThere are problems that we had a hard time solving a couple years ago that are now very easily solvable by the large language models. For example, understanding complex sentences was a big task before. Now, it\u2019s something that\u2019s very easy to understand and break down into actionable items.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers have also made strides in the area of coordination between humanoids. This year at RoboCup, two full teams of humanoid robots competed in an 11-versus-11 soccer match for the first time.<\/p>\n \u2713<\/p>\n Check your inbox for a confirmation email.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was remarkable,\u201d said Visser, who also serves as president of the\u00a0RoboCup Federation<\/a>, which runs the RoboCup competitions and an international symposium.<\/p>\n The RoboCanes team is especially excited about the humanoid robot\u2019s fingers, which will enable it to perform tasks like opening a bottle of water, unscrewing a jar, or handing items to a human.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beauty of having a large humanoid in the lab is that it opens up completely new functionality,\u201d Visser explained. \u201cThe reason why we bought this [robot] is because of the dexterity.\u201d<\/p>\n This dexterity will help the team reach its long-term goal, which is to develop software for an autonomous household robot that could care for an elderly person in their home. Autonomous household robots could eventually help fill labor shortages in countries facing aging populations and declining fertility rates, where the number of elderly people who need help in their homes may soon exceed the number of young people able to provide it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Visser and Pasternak said researchers still have a long way to go before an autonomous household robot can perform all the tasks necessary to care for an elderly person, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n For a robot to function autonomously outside a laboratory, many different parts need to work together seamlessly: motion control, sensors, vision, language comprehension, navigation, and task execution.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people underestimate is that to make a holistic humanoid that is autonomous and does something in the real world, a lot of integration is required,\u201d Visser said. \u201cSometimes, even with the help of AI, it\u2019s not that easy.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the challenges in this field have more to do with human perceptions than hardware or software. A nearly six-foot-tall robot with human-like arms and legs can seem intimidating.<\/p>\n For Pasternak\u2019s dissertation, she is still using the smaller, friendlier-looking Toyota Human Support Robots, which measure approximately three feet high. This is in part because her research involves using robots in a medical clinic to educate children and their parents about asthma medication.<\/p>\n \u201cMost kids are so excited to see the robot. They\u2019re very curious, they want to interact with it, they want to touch it,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how they\u2019re going to react to an adult-sized humanoid that looks a little bit like a Terminator.\u201d<\/p>\n Krya Gurney is a writer for University of Miami News. This story was produced by University of Miami News<\/a> and reposted here with permission.<\/p>\n Photo at top of post: Ubbo Visser, left, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, poses for a photo in the robotics lab with Ph.D. students Katarzyna Pasternak, center, and Dewan Tauhid Rahman, right. They are part of a team developing software that enables the Toyota Human Support Robot, left, and the\u00a0Fourier Intelligence GR-2 humanoid robot, center,\u00a0to complete household tasks.\u00a0Photo: Joshua Prezant\/University of Miami<\/p>\n ![\"Guest](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789765932_145_66c78b435a7a4290e44ec5609b25f10c7f940f6875de0cb037ae6c02592f55a4.jpeg\")
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