IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2023 - 135

robot embodiment that researchers might seek, and novel robot
implementations are required to enable expressive capabilities
in HRI settings. That said, the number of nonhumanoid social
robots trails in comparison to other robotics domains, likely
due to the novelty of the field.
HUMANOIDS
Humanoids are distinguished from the social robots discussed
in the previous section because they are often used in
applications beyond HRI and embodied social behavior.
Humanoid platforms have been used in robotics research
for studying grasping and manipulation, bipedal locomotion,
multirobot collaboration, motion planning, perception,
and more. However, building a new humanoid robot is a
resource-intensive process and might not be desirable if the
research field requires employing the robot simply as a
platform upon which to build and validate algorithms. The
RoboCup soccer competition spawned several such open
humanoid platforms, such as DARwin-OP (subsequently followed
by ROBOTIS-OP2 and -OP3) [59] and NimbRo-OP
and -OP2X [60], [61] for researchers to deploy in their own
specific applications. The hardware and software for all these
platforms was released open source to aid users in modifying
and repairing the robots, and have since been used in
additional research areas of developmental psychology, cognitive
science, and education.
Rapid-prototyping fabrication techniques such as 3D printing
have enabled users to manufacture components for open hardware
more easily, and open humanoid platforms have capitalized
on the proliferation of these techniques. The Poppy
project [54] [see Figure 3(c)] and InMoov [62] were some of
the first 3D-printed open source humanoid robots that could
be entirely built and then programmed by the user. Both of
these projects have also created a strong community centered
around the robot, where users utilizing the robots in different
applications can ask questions and share their adaptations and
suggestions [63], [64]. The more recent Epi humanoid platform
[65] is also assembled with 3D-printed components and focuses
on developmental robotics research, with its child-like impression
and a fixed base. Similar to Epi, the NICO robot [66]
provides yet another platform for multimodal HRI research in
developmental robotics and embodied cognition. Finally, the
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
FIGURE 2. Robot arm and hand ORH projects. (a) The model T robot hand from Yale OpenHand [23]. (b) The TriFinger robot platform
[24]. (c) The hybrid hand exoskeleton glove [25]. (d) The Niryo One robot arm [26].
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
FIGURE 3. Social robot and humanoid ORH projects. (a) The MyKeepon toy robot [52]. (b) The Blossom handcrafted robot [53].
(c) The Poppy humanoid [54]. (d) The iCub humanoid robot [55].
SEPTEMBER 2023 IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE
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IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2023

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