Category Archives: Transhuman News

Googles Project Tango, the prototype smartphone packed with sensors so it can learn and sense the world around it, is heading to the International Space Station.

Two of the Tango phones are due to be launched to the ISS on the upcoming Orbital 2 mission, which is scheduled to launch in May and take supplies to the station. The phones will be used as part of a NASA project thats developing robots that could one day fly around the inside or outside of the space station, or even be used in NASAs planned mission to land on an asteroid.

Work on the robots is already going on at NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and this week the space agency let a small group of reporters visit its lab and see some of the research.

Three Spheres satellites float inside the International Space Station.

The phones, which are being supplied to a limited number of developers at present, were unveiled by Google a month ago. They include several cameras and infrared range-finding so the phone can build up a three-dimensional model of its surroundingsa significant difference from current handsets that can see only a two-dimensional world through a single camera.

Google has already shown the phones being used to build up a detailed map of the interior of a home or office, but NASA has much bigger plans. At Ames, which is just minutes from Googles Mountain View headquarters, researchers have attached a Tango handset to a robot development platform called a Sphere.

Technically an 18-sided polyhedron, each Sphere is about the size of a soccer ball and self-powered. They can free-fly around the inside of the ISS thanks to carbon dioxide-powered thrusters, said Chris Provencher, Smart Spheres project manager at NASA.

The Spheres have already been used in developing autonomous equipment. The space agency conducted a Spheres test with a Nexus S smartphone as part of Shuttle mission STS-135 in 2011, but the Tango phones promise more capabilities.

We are researching how effective Project Tangos vision-based navigation capabilities are for performing localization and navigation of a mobile free flyer on ISS, said Andres Martinez, Spheres Manager at NASA.

Specifically, we are researching how well the 3-D modeling and visual odometry can be used to let the [Spheres] free flyer learn its environment and maneuver through it based on what it sees, said Martinez. This is in contrast to the current Spheres localization system, which relies on fixed sensors in the environment to help the Spheres track its position.

Here is the original post:
Google's Project Tango headed to International Space Station

Fri, Mar 21, 2014

In a breakthrough that will help make it possible for astronauts and robots to work together in deep space, researchers at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (ATC), working with NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station, have demonstrated coordinated control of robots in space by astronauts in space and operators on the ground. The breakthrough is the first-ever demonstration of such collaborative tele-operations. The maneuvers create new opportunities to extend the reach of human and robotic missions in Earth orbit and beyond.

Astronaut Karen Nyberg and ATC engineer Humberto Ormeno used an ATC-developed, 3-D user interface to command NASA's Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Re-orient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) robots on the space station. Inside the space station, the robots (each about the size of a soccer ball) were commanded in "follow-the-leader" exercises and simulated approach-and-docking maneuvers, like those required for in-space assembly of large space structures and asteroid exploration. There is also flexibility within the system, meaning automated control of one or more robots can be combined with manual control of another.

Remote commanding of robots in space, or tele-operation, poses several unique challenges. Commands and telemetry can take one to three seconds to travel between space and the ground via satellite relays, forcing remote operators to predict the effects of their actions using old data. Delicate components designed for weightlessness can be damaged by accidental collisions or even exhaust gases produced by other satellites, so safe maneuvering is essential. The work on the space station is demonstrating how to deal with the time delays associated with signal transfer from the ground.

"The ATC has started to confront these challenges by performing multiple experiments with the SPHERES robots, through a no-cost Space Act Agreement with the International Space Station National Laboratory Office," said Dr. Nelson Pedreiro, ATC director of Science and Technology. "This technology exemplifies how breakthroughs can be achieved in a cost-effective and agile manner."

"Supervising a team of robots in microgravity requires intuitive and informative user interfaces so operators can maintain control over sensitive maneuvers without being overwhelmed by details," says Andrew Zimdars, who leads the ATC effort. "SPHERES enables us to work with the astronauts who will command future exploration missions and develop software technologies that meet their needs."

(SPHERES image provided by NASA)

View original post here:
Lockheed Martin Researchers Achieve Breakthrough In Robotics For Space