YuMi the robot makes debut as orchestra conductor in Italy

Robots can do a lot: they can chant at funerals, swim, guide you through airports,

and even dance their way to a Guinness World Record. Now, a robot called YuMi has made its conducting debut in Italy, leading an orchestra and renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in three pieces of music including “La Donna è Mobile,” from Verdi’s opera Rigoletto. YuMi (as in “you and me”) was created by technology company ABB, which claims the robot is the world’s “first collaborative dual-arm robot.” It performed Tuesday night at a charity gala for the first International Robotics Festival. ABB says the robot’s performance was developed by capturing the movements of maestro Andrea Colombini with a process known as lead-through programming. That means the robot’s arms were guided to follow the conductor’s motions meticulously; those movements were then recorded and further fine-tuned in software. “The gestural nuances of a conductor have been fully reproduced at a level that was previously unthinkable to me,” Colombini said in a statement. “YuMi achieves a very high level of fluidity of gesture, with an incredible softness of touch and expressive nuancing.”                                                                       https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/14/16306528/yumi-robot-abb-debut-orchestra-conductor-italy