Posted at 02:42 PM ET, 03/29/2013

Mar 29, 2013 06:42 PM EDT

View Photo Gallery:The first humanoid robot in space has been there for two years. Robonaut 2 arrived in February 2011 and was unpacked the next month. The robot was developed jointly by NASA and General Motors.

NASA Tournament Lab is launching two new competitions, this time to give Robonaut 2, the humanoid robot aboard the international space station, the gift of improved sight. The challenges are the latest offered by the Tournament Lab in conjunction with the open innovation platform TopCoder.

The first competition calls on participants to figure out how to enable Robonaut 2, or R2, to identify buttons and switches on a console fitted with LED lights. The winning entry would be in the form of an algorithm application that works seamlessly with R2s cameras in different lighting conditions. The second competition will build off the first, calling on competitors to write an algorithm that controls the robots motions based on the new sight capability.

The first phase of the competition officially launches Saturday, with a formal announcement scheduled for Monday, according to a TopCoder spokesman. The winner of the first phase of the competition will receive $10,000.

Were right in the middle of advancing and testing robotics using the space station right now, said Jason Crusan, Director of NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems division during a call Friday. This is kind of the right time to onramp other solutions to these image processing problems other than the ones we have come up with.

Robonaut 2 was developed and designed to operate as if it were a humanoid, making sight one of its primary tools. The robot currently employs a two-camera view system. We definitely need the vision piece, said Crusan.

The technology participants will be called on to create has wider applications beyond R2, said Crusan. And the innovator who submits a solution will not be barred from being able to use the code elsewhere, including making commercial products. But the winning entry is sent back into open source to guarantee that NASA and others can use it.

Past technology to emerge from the Robonaut program, a partnership between NASA and General Motors, has been the K-glove, which GM factory workers use, said Julia Badger, the ISS Applications Lead for the Robonaut 2 project. Thats an immediate very quick thing that has spun off.

Original post:

NASA and TopCoder to issue Robonaut 2 ‘sight’ challenge