Petar Kormushev and his colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology's Advanced Robotics department taught the iCub robot how to hold a bow and release the arrow. Then, using two algorithms and visual feedback from a camera, the bot learned to aim and shoot arrows, hitting the centre of a target 3.5m away in only eight attempts.
The open-source robot was developed in Europe to help researchers study child development and cognition. They plan to present their findings (PDF) at the Humanoids2010 conference in December. iCub stands 107cm tall and has an articulated trunk, arms and legs, as well as a ghostly white face with big round eyes that can follow moving objects, such as people fleeing from flying arrows.
Photo credit: Petar Kormushev, Sylvain Calinon and Ryo Saegusa on Flickr
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