Born about 40 years ago, biorobotics has carved out increasingly important spaces for itself. Also thanks to Paolo Dario, one of the “fathers” of this branch of robotics who illustrates its present and future
The biorobotica today it is a developed science that boasts absolute excellence at a global level. Yet, forty years ago it was almost utopian to think of the development that this branch of robotics has had today, which touches on many aspects, ranging from wearable collaborative technology to prosthetics, from medical robotics to soft robotics. One of the “founding fathers” of biorobotics, as well as one of the historical figures of robotics worldwide, is Paolo Dario, professor of Biomedical Robotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, of which he is founder and director of the BioRobotics Institute. This summer he received the 2024 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award, recognized for his contributions in advancing bionics and biorobotics as key research areas worldwide, integrating robotics and medicine.
Because this is exactly what biorobotics is: science and engineering field capable of applying robotics to problems involving biology and medicine, with great opportunities and benefits offered to both. Yet in the 1980s talking about biorobotics was almost utopian. Dario himself knows this well, as in 1989 he was one of the organizers of one of the first conferences dedicated to the topic at a global level. The same luminary promoted the creation of numerous high-tech industrial companies born from the research carried out in the laboratories he founded and coordinated (the ARTS Lab and the CRIM Lab, respectively for research in Advanced Robotics and in Micro and Nanoengineering). These companies now employ over 150 graduates, as noted by the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.
Paolo Dario, professor of Biomedical Robotics at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, founder and director of the BioRobotics Institute
Takeaway
In the 1980s it seemed little more than a utopia: over the years biorobotics has established itself and is today considered an essential science which finds various applications. One of the most important figures for its birth and development is Paolo Dario, professor of Robotics Biomedical and founder of the Institute of Biorobotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa Dario himself points out the most important steps taken in this discipline and outlines what is being worked on today and prefigures a future in which robots, increasingly connected, will provide a even more sensitive help to man, laying the foundations for a fruitful coexistence
Professor Dario, what have been the most significant steps in the development of biorobotics from the beginning to today?
The first and most significant step was theacceptance of this term. At first, even using the term biorobotics was a challenge. Instead, what I proposed and developed together with a group of students who later became teachers and colleagues, here at the Institute of Biorobotics, which I founded and directed and which today has more than 110 doctoral students, has become a consolidated reality and growing. Being able to count on a critical mass of dedicated people means exploring various areas that make up biorobotics, which I define as bio inspiration and bio application, in which “bio” is a central term. Another fundamental challenge in this area was the idea that robotics, also thanks to biorobotics, could be considered a science and not just a technology as it was previously. Robotics was born above all as an application of reprogrammable machines in the industrial sector. In addition to it there was the dream of automatons, androids, humanoid robots, which thanks to biorobotics we were able to give reality to. Thus, robots used for applications useful to humanity were developed. Let’s just think about robotic surgery: in the 1980s, when we thought the use of robots in this medical field was possible, my colleagues and I – absolute pioneers – risked being taken for crazy. Today, however, we know how common this practice is, especially in different fields.
Today the concept of One Health has established itself, that is, health in a holistic sense, which concerns humans, but recognizes the connection between people, animals and the environment. Automation and robotics – especially biorobotics – can be protagonists of this vision: together with man, they can take care of the world.
Still on the topic of robotics (and biorobotics) as a science, I consider it a fundamental but complex step that has been taken in various ways. Personally, I have always been inspired by the vision of nature, by the opportunity to study it and be inspired by it, working in collaboration with biologists and neuroscientists to develop new functions for robots.
Even today, more than ChatGPT and the potentially important potential of Generative AI, I am more attracted to observing a cat, studying its movements, grace, harmony and the role played by muscles, organs and tendons.
What role have artificial intelligence techniques had and still have in the development of biorobotics?
I would say that they played a role in alternating phases, with peaks of great enthusiasm, such as the advent of neural networks, the awareness of the limits resulting from the lack of data and the speed of processors, which were certainly not as fast then as they are today. Thanks to different factors, linked to technologies used in daily life, such as video games and the advent of smartphones, rich in sensors, technological evolution has also contributed to the progress of AI and to the contribution, especially in the last ten years, to robotics.
However, I do not believe that current knowledge of artificial intelligence is able to provide significant contributions in recreating the grace of the cat’s movement, to return to the example cited, or to the fluid movements of the dance, to reconnect me to man.
I think of the evolution of robots, which over the years have been put in a position to have contact with humans (until 10 years ago it was impossible). This is how collaborative robotics developed, to which Italy and Europe have had a great contribution, working considerably to reach this goal. Creating robots that can be “road companions”, assistants capable of helping us in every phase of our lives is the real key to robotic development. They don’t need to give refined speeches, but rather help us physically.
Having said that, I believe that AI is not a basic element, even if it has its importance. One area in which it will be able to make an important contribution to robotics is in improving control of the body, of physicality, and this is the real challenge in creating useful machines. Robots, by their very nature, are machines, physical objects that operate in a physical world. During my studies, also in collaboration with neuroscientists, which also culminated in projects such as Neurobotics – pioneering in seeking an alliance between neuroscience and robotics – we asked ourselves about the value of intelligence. One of the themes we reflected on is the value ofanticipation, or the ability to predict and anticipate certain actions linked to external factors. Here lies the secret value of intelligence, which arises as a winning element of evolved beings in predicting and responding as quickly as possible to certain stimuli. It is a concept that has the body at its centre: we are real beings, not virtual ones, who live in a physical world, with forces and frictions.
What are the most important challenges biorobotics is working on today?
First of all, understand it in its value as a science, aimed at better understanding how living beings work. I am convinced that the most radical, disruptive innovation can come from science. One of the merits of biorobotics is having combined science, technology and engineering and it is a very important role.
The physical sciences must also be combined with human and social sciences: this too is biorobotics, that is, creating machines with the awareness of doing good things. The 26th Canto of the Divine Comedy comes to mind in which Dante meets Ulysses and Diomedes: the three talk about “virtue and knowledge” that is, of scientific and technological knowledge and principles. They are two fundamental elements without which progress is lacking. Biorobotics can and must always find its programmatic line in these elements and values.
Then there is another great challenge: it is that of the body and its functioning. In this, new technologies come into play such as the science of materials, the involvement with energy and the necessary energy efficiency, the need to develop creations attentive to the circular economy.
We are also working on the evolution of robots, which will be increasingly connected, equipped with distributed intelligence.
What potential will open up in biorobotics in the future?
I believe we will see an evolution rather than a revolution. The Italian community, very advanced and international, is increasingly working on the integration of knowledge which will lead to very interesting results. What I notice today is a great excitement, with great participation and interest from young people, who today make up 90% of the participants in the major global robotics events. There is a convergence of knowledge, and in the near future we will see very interesting creations. When I think about the future I often refer to a prophetic film, Io, Robot (2004), based on a book by Asimov, set in Chicago in 2035 where men and robots coexist. I believe this vision is realistic and feasible: from cars to drones to underwater robots, many robotic applications will be part of everyday life.
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