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'Robonaut' Designed To Perform Spacewalk
Adam Blake writes "CNN reports that NASA has designed a robotic spacewalker called the Robonaut which will perform satellite repairs and other duties typically performed by spacewalking astronauts. It is controlled remotely via a virtual reality interface and bears a small, apparently
'coincidental' resemblance (in the face) to intergalactic bounty
hunter Boba Fett."
Now about this stopy: I think that this is a good thing, but I sure hope that they can learn to control the robost better than they can control the mars lander. Granted they could not have a visual on the mars lander, and there were other issues there.
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Only 'flamers' flame!
NASA has always come up under-funded after the huge budget to get to the moon (well, yee-haw lot's of good things came from that!) Politicians admit there's tons of good that came from NASA (lots of small technologies, including small computers) but the budget seems to be far too high for them to handle.
NASA has constantly been working on ways to cut costs. The reusable shuttlecraft for now (in fact everything is reusable except for the big orange tank which fuels the shuttle burners; the two white O2 containers are picked up and reused) and in the future something that will be competley reusuable except for the fuel cost. Which leaves the larger expenses of space exploration of 1) the price to hire, train, continue to pay astronauts capable of operating in such adverse conditions, and 2) the huge consideration for saftey (and price!) to warrent a space-walk.
Robots are a pay-once type of deal; you don't need to pay again unless they break. And you don't have to worry about their saftey during a spacewalk exercise. Eventually, what if for a basic maintenance voyage no human need go along at all? Thing about how dratsically that would cut the cost of a mission.
Hope NASA sees the future potential of this project...
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
Once again, technology rushes ahead leaving the worker in a perilous situation. These robots are stealing jobs away from hardworking American astronauts! "Workers of, er, the World Unite!" Do you think United Auto Workers would take astronauts?
You are right. I shouldn't post at 3 AM :-)
I think what I meant was that controlling the robot would be kind of easy and natural, mimicing the movements and limits of a human upper torso. A 'naut could get proficient in a short period of time, thus implying a very steep learning curve of a few basic operations.
Thats opposed to some incredibly complex control systems I've seen, which tried to do too many things in a non-intuitive way. Creeping featurism out of control, and a rabid marketing team pushing the monstrosity out the door. Go read risks for some nightmarish ideas.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
What is so useful about having a space worker robot have a basically humanoid form? I would think that more arms or a variable number and more "eyes" could be advantageous. What is with the torso and neck? How are these shapes useful or preferable for the jobs at hand?
Otherwise, IT IS ABOUT TIME! Sending fragile humans to space to do minor repairs is unnecessarily dangerous and expensive. It is about time we notice our cyber creations are more suited to space than ourselves and made more use of this fact.
Robonaut will look like Boba Fett but have the logical and physical capacities of the great IG-88! This will be an unstoppable bounty hunter! Er, that is, I mean, space-walking robot, yeah that's the ticket.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Telepresence is a technology which might have big impacts on everyday life, and we already have most of the knowledge to make it real.
On the other hand, most employers will consider a man cheaper and more expendable than very expensive hardware. ... Just think of the Internet.
Technology is useless in the hands of a wrong culture
Ciao
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FB
The motivation for this work is that the International Space Station requires too much EVA activity just for its routine maintenance. NASA is trying to find a less risky way of doing the more routine stuff.
having no intelligence of it's own, it is no more a 'robot' than a bulldozer, controlled by a remote...
virtual reality? oh please, give me a break...
how to get publicity and funding: build a 1950s-sci-fi-style remote controlled mechanic toy in the shape of human body and call it a robot. then throw in a few passé catch-phrases like 'virtual reality' or 'fractal automata' or 'nano'-whatever...
Robin Williams was at least funny...
"Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot." -- Paul Graham
This looks like a great design. Nothing too radical to confuse astronauts controlling it. Learning curve should be fairly shallow.
:-)
:-)
But it could benefit by adding a couple of arms designed for a limited grasp and hold function. An operator could position one of these extra arm to hold an object in place, hit a freeze button, then go back to using the two prehensile arms.
I wish I had one of these for work around the house. So many times I wished I could have 4 or 5 arms to get a quick and dirty job done
the AC
And are we forgetting the chainsaw and BFG hand attachments, sold separately
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Oh I can't wait to see the first time the astronats use it for some silly prank, and they will its great PR. Here are some possibilities:
"Who's piloting the shuttle!?!"
A close up of a robot arm putting a human hand in warm water.
"Who's been in the bathroom for so damn long?!"
The first outer space robot human back massage.
A very synchronized dance routine when NASA springs for 2 of these.
Subsystems
Hand| Arms| Head| Controls| Avionics| Telepresence|
Videos (.AVI)
Hand (5.3 M)| Telepresenc e (3.3 M)| Arm motion (2.9 M)| Grasping (2.1 M)| Tether hook (1.9 M)| Velcro (2.7 M)|
Tools
Analysis tools| Software development | Telepresence Laboratory
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I remember when the arms outside the spacecraft were supposedly going to be controlled by VR. Does anybody know if this ever really came to be? It would seem to me, that precision is much better with a multiview interface. You can always misjudge distance with VR, but multiple viewing (like in high school drafting class, kids) forces you to look at the actual orientation. Just a thought.
On a side note, applications like this are one of the few areas that I see vr interfaces as being truly useful. I don't really see the point of VR chatting, it's fun for games, OS's that use it make little to no sense to me however. I think that sometimes, VR is a solution looking for a problem. A neet glossy toy that everyone wants to take credit for being the first to do something truly useful with it. There is SOME serious research, but the majority of it seems to be the fluffy and filler and eyecandy of computer science (not that I don't love every tasty morsel).
Eh...
I work for one of the contractors on the Robonaut project. It's coming along nicely, with more automation of repetitious tasks and intelligent responses to failures (such as lost communication) planned for the next few years. Here's some more information.
http://vesuvius.jsc. nasa.gov/er_er/html/robonaut/robonaut.html
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