Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., is developing a robot that it hopes will learn to work and interact smoothly with humans. The non-human student, known as LUMI, is part of the university’s Laurentian Intelligent Mobile Robotics Lab. It’s a Unitree R1 humanoid robot with dexterous hands. “LUMI is a full-size robot we plan to use,” said Dr. Meng Cheng Lau, a professor at Laurentian University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science. “We plan to have robots doing research such as VLA, which stands for vision-language action model, where we teach the robots to learn tasks such as doing your laundry, making your coffee, things like that.” In January, four students will start working with LUMI, teaching it more natural interactions, paired with some artificial intelligence commands like helping LUMI stay upright when pushed. “The capacity to interact with humans is also very important,” Lau said. “Eventually we want robots to work along with humans in, let’s say, in a factory setting or in a workshop or things like that.” He doesn’t think that day is too far off. While some may fear AI-powered robots, he maintains a positive outlook on the developing technology. “From my point of view, we should adapt to how the technology is actually advanced nowadays,” Lau said. “I expect in the next five to 10 years, you will see humanoid robots walking on the street next to humans — or at least working in the factory.” The goal is to have LUMI become a fully autonomous robot that can receive and understand verbal commands. However, LUMI is still far away from that reality at this point. Lau said the school is also looking at introducing LUMI as part of their team at the FIRA RoboWorld Cup. However, they can’t say for sure if LUMI will be ready to join next year, because a lot of programming work is still required.
