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| Favorites: Music: `Ben Harper.' Weekend moment: `Reading on my hammock.' Dream destination: `Mexico, for the culture and the sea, and to visit the pyramids.' Languages: Spanish, Italian and English. `I want to study Dutch, it's important.' Favorite food: `Hand-made pasta.' What do you like about living in the Netherlands: `The people here are kind.' What don't you like about the Netherlands: `The weather.' |
The external shell of the robotic head is made of a hard white plastic. Carloni explains, `The cover was designed by Stefan Binnemars, a student about to graduate for his bachelor degree in industrial design. The team wanted something that was not human-like, because a life-like plastic skin can be scary. We wanted something futuristic and really UT, so we used the logo and the orange color. By collaborating with other departments, we have learned how to co-ordinate speech and communicate emotion with the shape of the lips and eyebrows so that the robot can mimic human beings as closely as possible. Light will also be projected from inside the shell to express this emotion. The project itself involved the mechanical control of the movement of all the actuators coupled with the vision system. This means that the head and neck should have all the degrees of freedom necessary in order to look at an object.'
The robotic head is an important part of the Twente Humanoid Project, which is the development of an improved bipedal human robot that can mimic human behavior and interact with people. Carloni says, `We want to implement new ideas for a different kind of humanoid using energy efficient actuators. We also use biological information to determine humanoid movement, and while studying this we can acquire the knowledge to help people in areas like prosthetics. Although I'm more focused on the technical part, as a woman, it's satisfying to think that we may be able to help people.' Carloni's tenure position is funded by the 3TU Center of Excellence with their focus on technological research that can support or take over human action. She stresses that although she has co-supervised some work on the head, as well as the grasping and knee-locking mechanisms, she is part of a much bigger team.
Carloni was born in Rimini, Italy, which is situated on the Adriatic coast. Even though the town has a population similar to that of Enschede, Carloni misses the lifestyle. `Rimini and Bologna are very lively places. Here it is really quiet and calm. During the winter Rimini is a normal city, but in the summer there are a lot of tourists, and the beach is amazing. About five years ago, some of the faculties from the University of Bologna moved to Rimini, bringing in students.'
Both during and after obtaining her master's degree in Electronic Engineering at the University of Bologna, Carloni spent several months in Castellón, Spain at the University of Jaume I. It was here, at summer school, in the company of PhD students and professors, that she decided she wanted to continue her studies. Motivated, she returned to Bologna to commence her PhD in Control System Engineering and Operational Research. In the final year of her doctorate she attended the University of California, Santa Barbara for ten months. `Like the UT it was a campus, but with windows near the ocean, and we could see dolphins. There were weekly seminars by important professors from all over the US. It was a good learning process for me,' says Carloni.
Carloni joined the staff of the Control Engineering group at the UT's Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) in February this year. She is passionate about the group and especially its leader, Professor Stramigioli. `In these seven months I've learned a lot: how to manage people, write proposals, work on research and teaching activities. Our project leader, Stefano, is full of ideas, and he's so enthusiastic. There are many people working on the Humanoid Project, and I really feel part of the whole group. It's like a family.'
Happiness, according to Carloni, comes from the ability to balance work with family life. She models herself on the successful example set by her parents. As a child she enjoyed building things. `I loved mathematics and physics at school,' she says, `so I had no doubts about what I wanted to do. I enjoy books and movies, but technical stuff is also fun.'
