YuMi, the collaborative dual-armed robot, the first of its kind, on Tuesday 12 September debuted in the opera by directing the famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and the Lucca Philharmonic orchestra at Teatro Verdi in Pisa. This was done at the charity concert of the First International Festival of Robotics. Over 800 guests from all over the world enjoyed the live program called “A Breath of Hope: From the Stradivarius to the Robot”. Among the guests were the executive director of ABB Ulrich Spiesshofer, under whose leadership YuMi was developed.
YuMi, produced by Swiss tech pioneer ABB, invited Andrea Bocelli to the stage, who performed the famous La Donna è Mobile aria from Verdi’s Rigoletto. In his first live performance, YuMi directed the works of Puccini and Mascagni.
Robot was trained by Italian conductor Andrea Colombini. YuMi’s performance developed in two steps. At rehearsals, Colombini’s movements were caught in a process called lead-through programming, where two robotic hands mimic the motions with great attention to detail. The second step involved fine tune-ups in the ABB’s RobotStudio program to help align the robot’s movements with the music.
“The gestural nuances of a conductor have been fully reproduced at a level that was previously unthinkable to me. This is an incredible step forward, given the rigidity of gestures by previous robots,” Colombini wrote in his blog.
YuMi is one of the highest forms of robot technology that changes the way the world sees cooperation between man and robot. Described as a collaborative robot, it is designed to work with people as a complement to workforce. He has successfully proven his ability already by solving the Rubik’s cube.
Conducting as one of the highest forms of art and YuMi testify to the natural development of man and machine, that can work together in completely new ways.
