This technical treasure is called "Centauro". It was built at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) by a team led by Nikos Tsagarakis, who heads IIT's Humanoids and Human Centered Mechatronics Lab, in Genoa. The project is part of the CENTAURO Consortium, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by researchers from the University of Bonn.

Centauro was constructed as a "human-robot symbiotic system where a human operator is telepresent with its whole body in a Centaur-like robot, which is capable of robust locomotion and dexterous manipulation in the rough terrain and austere conditions characteristic of disasters."

At 1.5 meter tall and weighing 93 kilograms, Centauro is relatively big and at the same time flexible and agile. It is made of lightweight metals like aluminum and its body is covered in 3D-printed plastic. It is also equipped with several computers that handle perception, control, and motion planning. Thank to it hybrid locomotion that combines wheels and legs Centauro provides great mobility and balancing skills. Batteries can keep Centauro operational for solid 2.5 hours. The robot requires a human operator and can not function autonomously yet.

The legs are one of the most innovative parts of its body. They are able to realize articulated movements in the environment, by rotating and extending hips, knees and ankles, and control the wheel modules, which are placed at the ankles. The robot has various configurations of its legs positioning and walking, including both inward and outward knee arrangements, wheel-based mobility and a spider leg configuration, which is one of the most stable positions that can help this robot to stay in one position while using heavy tools or executing some physical activity. Wheels are made of an aluminium alloy and its outer layer is covered with an elastomer material that ensures suitable friction when rolling on the ground surfaces. The combination of wheels and legs makes it possible to implement "terrain following" locomotion, which gives the robot greater ability to cope with uneven terrain like walking up the stairs.

The upper part of the centaur's body is also unique. Its arms produced in a special way to be able to execute physical tasks and use human tools. The robot can demonstrate manipulation strength capacity that is higher than that of the typical human adult. Its arms are lightweight (10.5 kg) and can handle tools that weight 11 kg. Furthermore, producers claim that "its high performance and impact-resilient actuation system permits the robot to perform manipulation tasks that require severe physical interactions without the risk of physical damage to robot components. The robot has been designed to support high manipulation loads and is more resilient against physical impacts, allowing it to perform tasks that require it to modify the environment, e.g., breaking a blocked door to free the pathway."

Nikos Tsagarakis shared some plans for the future development of the robot: "One goal is to validate the robot's performance in increasingly more complex locomotion-manipulation tasks that will involve high payloads and harsh physical interactions—in other words, situations resembling those encountered by emergency responders. Another goal is the continuous improvement of the robot task-execution autonomy, as we aim to improve the robot's overall efficiency and demonstrate faster operation under minimal operator interventions."