The following from the iCub website:
"RobotCub is a 5 years long project funded by the European Commission through Unit E5 "Cognition". Our main goal is to study cognition through the implementation of a humanoid robot the size of a 2 year old child: the iCub."
The following is the abstract of RobotCub paper:
"We describe a research initiative in embodied cognition that will create and exploit a 54 degree-of-freedom humanoid robot. This humanoid — RobotCub — is currently being designed and the final system will be made freely available to the scientific community through an open systems GNU-like general public licence. In addition, we describe a research agenda in cognitive systems that is based on the co-developmental learning through embodied physical interation: exploration, manipulation, imitation, and communication. This agenda borrows heavily from experience in developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. All cognitive software associated with RobotCub will also be available under the open systems licence."