Yeah. I can fly.

Hey Robot fans,

This week’s robotic news is freaking great. The Italian Institute of Technology has unveiled a humanoid robot that can fly. FLY! We are getting big Tony Stark vibes from iRonCub3.

Meet iRonCub3, a jet-powered humanoid that hovers using four tiny jet engines: two on its arms, two on its back. It recently achieved its first test flight—lifting 50cm off the ground, stabilizing itself midair, and igniting the imagination of everyone who’s ever taped cardboard wings to their arms and jumped off a couch.

🔍 Deep Dive: iRonCub3 – Jetpacks, Titanium, and the Future of Flight

iRonCub3 is a project developed by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), which is a research institute (not a university exactly) designed for Italian innovation. This is a flying robot from the country that brought Ferraris into the world. We’re into it.

The project is littered with Iron Man references (which we love). The name of the project is IronCub (albeit with different capitalization). The original prototype in the research paper is the MK1 aka Mark1, which is the same thing Tony calls his first Iron Man suit.

Developed by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), this robot’s got:

• A titanium spine to survive fiery 800°C exhaust

• Heat-resistant shell to keep it cool mid-flight

• AI-powered balance control to stay upright while hovering

• A weird, plastic baby face…

It feels like inspiration was sitting right there, but I’m not sure what they were thinking with the face 😬. Check the video below:

🔮 What’s the point of a flying robot that can’t even hold your coffee?

Remember, this is a research lab in Italy, not one of the mega companies we usually profile. The uses they came up with are practical, but less focused on a huge addressable market. The research paper identified these areas of application for flying humanoids:

• Disaster zones where drones can’t carry payloads

• Hazardous environments where actual humans don’t want to go

• Planetary exploration when wheels are so last century

🤔 Our Take

While not practical yet, a flying humanoid could help us tremendously in our quest for chores. Think of the grocery store. Even with a driverless car you have to go with the car! That takes time. You can still get stuck in traffic.

With a flying robot, you can just tell it to fly to a place for you without actually going there. Here’s some things what I’d ask it

• Fly to the store and pick up eggs.

• My son forgot his lunch, fly to school to drop it for him.

• I’m traveling this week, fly to my house and pick up my packages.

I mean how cool would that be?

We will continue to watch the developments from IIT, they impressed us with this one 💪.

🎥 Video Corner

This section is where we round up the best robot vids from around the web.

Until next time.

The future is bright,
Ferol

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