iCub was the child-sized humanoid robot platform created for European research.
The iCub project began in 2004 through the European Union’s RobotCub research program. Its designers modeled the machine on a child of about three and a half years old, giving it humanlike hands, arms, legs, cameras, and sensors for studying learning and interaction.
iCub was intended as an open research platform rather than a consumer product. Researchers used it to investigate motor development, grasping, balance, perception, and how robots can learn through interaction with people and objects.
The name is often written with a lowercase i and uppercase C, as in iCub. It is distinct from NAO, a smaller commercial humanoid platform made by Aldebaran, and from Kismet, an earlier expressive robot head.