Robo Astronaut – Humanoid And Beyond
Not so long ago, in conversation, I said that I wouldn’t particularly want to work on space projects and my reasoning behind it was well founded.
“The reason” I said was “because I like to work on projects that I can see an end to. Projects that finish and are relevant to our lives now. Space is just too big!!”
But then we’re all allowed to change our minds aren’t we?? And I changed mine when I saw this amazing humanoid robot that NASA and GM are developing to send to the international space station.
Robonaut, or R2 as he’s known, is being developed, along with other technologies, to assist astronauts on their mission into the worlds that surround our planet. R2 will assist with maintenance and the monotonous chores that are a part of life whilst inside the space station, but that’s not what’s so impressive about this robot.
Robots until now have mostly interacted with humans in a very systematic ‘master-slave’ fashion. The human would interact with a robot with a relatively small amount of pre-formed instructions and the robot would react in a relatively linear and systematic way. NASA are changing this.
Well, as you can see from the video the dexterity of R2 is brilliant. Designed to mimic the degrees of freedom that we humans have, therefore putting him in a position to do jobs that the astronauts would usually be required to perform. This is great news for work that is dangerous or very repetitve and due to the very clever and well thought out design of R2 he is also able to perfom most of these tasks without the need for alteration to the tools that are being used. He just uses the same tools that were originally designed to be used by the astronauts.
But that’s not all…
In order to get R2 to work as efficiently as possible, NASA and GM have realised that the way R2 acts and interacts is very important.
We as humans work very well on a partner to partner basis. We communicate and talk. We ask questions and find out how we can best assist to get the task finished in the quickest time. R2 does this also.
“Our goal is not for robots to have the same thought process as humans, but rather for them to act, respond and interact more ‘naturally’ in ways that humans do with other humans” said Illah Nourbakhsh, a scientist who leads a group developing human-robot teams at NASA Ames Research Center. This is being achieved through three main areas, one of which is what they call ‘collaborative control’.
Nourbaksh explained “A key benefit of collaborative control is that the robot is able to ask questions of the human in order to compensate for (the robot’s) limitations.”
So, the robot asks questions if he’s not sure about something! Now we’re getting somewhere. Now it seems that the age of robotics may really be coming upon us.
This abiltiy for the robot to question the situation works alongside other things that make R2 unique, such as reasoning techniques.
These are things that we as humans use all the time in communication and are essential for us to understand and converse in a valid manner.
Nourbakhsh said. “We believe that by building robots with reasoning mechanisms and representations that are similar to what humans use, we can make human-robot interaction more natural and human-like.”
NASA are researching how teams of humans and humans/robots work together to try and make R2 fit into a working human team as easily and as naturally as possible. He will work alongside humans in tasks ranging from pipe assembly to research. Who know what else!
The work going in to R2 is not the only research concentrating on trying to get a smoother and less obtrusive integration of robots into lives, but it is by far the most exciting that I have seen.
R2 will work in teams with humans, as a partner not a slave.
R2 will live in close proximity with humans and interact with them in ways that have never been done before.
And like all new ‘products’, this technology will eventually leak down from being only available for space missions, to being cheaper enough for all of us to be able to afford.
Then we’ll all be able to have our own R2!
