Initial funding for the project was €8.5 million from Unit E5 – Cognitive Systems and Robotics – of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, and this ran for 65 months from 1 September 2004 until 31 January 2010.

[4] The robot was not designed for autonomous operation, and is consequently not equipped with onboard batteries or processors required for this —instead an umbilical cable provides power and a network connection.

[4] In its final version, the robot has 53 actuated degrees of freedom organized as follows: The head has stereo cameras in a swivel mounting where eyes would be located on a human and microphones on the side.

Since the first robots were constructed the design has undergone several revisions and improvements, for example smaller and more dexterous hands,[5] and lighter, more robust legs with greater joint angles and which permit walking rather than just crawling.

[21] Most of the financial support comes from the European Commission's Unit E5 or the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) via the recently created iCub Facility department.