The era of humanoid robots is promising to revolutionize the socio-economic landscape. The humanoid form factor indeed has some key advantages with respect to other more traditional robotics platforms. The legs allow the robot to climb stairs, locomote in tight spaces, and interact in proximity with humans. The arms and hands allow the robot to use tools and interact with humans. This combination makes the platform the perfect setup both for household deployment and healthcare scenarios, where the pervasive presence of humans does not allow the environment adaptation to the robot. Indeed, we have seen a strong interest from Region Skåne in the application of these platforms to the healthcare scenario. Interest has also been expressed by the Lund University Cognitive Robotics Lab.

The grant funds a humanoid robot platform for RobotLab LTH. We believe that a humanoid platform will be highly beneficial to increase the attention of robotics research at LTH and Lund University and keep the university at the forefront of the next humanoid robotics revolution. The platform enables internationally competitive research, building on the existing research expertise and extensive robotics infrastructure experience in RobotLab LTH.