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NASA develops androids for ISS construction
posted: 07:00 pm ET
09 June 2000
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robonauts_000609 Several NASA astronauts already have risked their lives during spacewalks to construct the International Space Station (ISS) currently orbiting Earth. In coming years, you'll see astronauts go up to the ISS with super-dexterous cyber-companions that will reduce the need for humans to take that "small step" beyond the confines of their space ships. Unlike smaller robots, the human-sized robots, called Robonauts, can latch on to the station and still have two "hands" free for manipulating objects and building the station as if it were a Tinkertoy.
Robonauts can attach to the outside of a space station for hands-free tasks. Robonauts, under development by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center, will be controlled by astronauts inside the station using a virtual reality interface -- they'll wear helmets and gloves wired to record their motions and immediately transfer those intentions and actions to robots outside the station. 
A robonaut can be human-sized, making it amenable to remote control by a human via a virtual reality interface. "We're using a humanoid shape to meet NASA's increasing requirements for Extravehicular Activity (EVA, or spacewalks)," NASA's Rob Ambrose said in a prepared statement. Ambrose is heading up the Robonaut project. Doing it better The two-armed, two five-fingered Robonauts come with a head and torso. Demonstrations in NASA's "Vomit Comet" weightlessness simulator have showed a Robonaut neatly catching a fly ball with finesse that might have impressed Joe DiMaggio. Ever since the dawn of space exploration, hardware has been built so that humans could service it. But advances in robotics and the telepresence conferred by virtual reality have made it so spacewalking humans are no longer a requirement, Ambrose said. "While the depth and breadth of human performance is beyond the current state of the art in robotics," he said, "NASA targeted the reduced dexterity and performance of a suited astronaut as Robonaut's design goals, specifically using the work envelope, ranges of motion, strength and endurance capabilities of spacewalking humans." And while the space station is primarily a human habitat, NASA isn't limited its vision to the human form when it comes to interplanetary exploration. Engineers also are devising animal-sized robots to squirm and fly around the surface of Mars and other planets.Space androids, at last Robonaut's arms are threaded and studded with avionics elements to reduce cabling and noise contamination, Ambrose said. And like humans, Robonaut has a central nervous system that channels all feedback in a tree-structure. 
NASA's robonaut has a hand with an opposable thumb for EVA tasks requiring dexterity. Robonaut can touch and feel heat, as well as sense locations and torquing with the more than 150 sensors on each arm. Those data are transferred to a real-time Central Processing Unit inside a hardened body.
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