Meet iRonCub: A Jetpack-Flying Humanoid Robot

Move over Iron Man, meet iRonCub, a humanoid robot who is learning to fly. Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) decided to teach their favourite two-legged robot, called iCub, which they make and sell to researchers around the world, to fly with a jetpack.

Now renamed iRonCub, the robot has a jet turbine on each arm and one on each shoulder.

“We had to rework all the jetpack, we had to rework all the lower body. So you have to remember that from here there is exhaust gas getting out at 800 degrees Celsius at supersonic speeds. So you have two problems. Airspeed breaks anything that it meets and melts anything that it meets. So we had to build this special protection,” Daniele Pucci, Head of Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence at the IIT, said.

The team hopes being able to fly will allow iRonCub to perform search and rescue operations in locations too dangerous or inaccessible for people.

“The ultimate goal is basically to have disaster response technology that can help operators to act remotely,” Pucci said.

The team is working on systems to allow the robot to maintain steady flight and controlled takeoffs, and landings and the transition between flying, landing and walking. The eventual goal may see iRonCub fitted with a wing to allow it to gain the benefits of horizontal flight.

The iRonCub has become the first humanoid robot to be tested in a wind tunnel at Politecnico di Milano, with the aim of validating its aerodynamics and collecting valuable data.

The team hopes that this innovative research could lead to a revolution in the capabilities of humanoid robots, expanding their potential use in disaster response and inspection tasks.