Cognitive Robotics Laboratory (CRL), belonging to Intelligent Robotic Lab (IRL) in Vanderbilt University, does research not only on humanoid robots, but also on service robots, multi-robot teams and even on human-robot interaction.
One of their major humanoid robot platforms is ISAC, which is short for Intelligent Soft Arm Control. This robot is equipped with pneumatically powered arms, which make interaction between humans and robots safe.
The ISAC robot can understand voice commands and can even respond to synthesized speech. Its software is built on an agent based paradigm, which has short and long term memories akin to that of a real human brain.
Additionally, this humanoid robot has hand-like effectors that closely resemble that of humans. To make it more human-like, the ISAC robot has been equipped with sensory motors allowing the robot to display various complex behaviours.
ISAC Features:
