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Space Science

'Robonaut' Designed To Perform Spacewalk 67

Posted by Hemos from the purty-robot-does-good-in-big-city dept.
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."
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'Robonaut' Designed To Perform Spacewalk More

'Robonaut' Designed To Perform Spacewalk

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  • I don't know if he'll object at all. It's not ripping of any names (unlike a Certain Handheld Device For A Certain Large Military Organization That Shall Remain Nameless), it's a non-commercial project, and it's for peaceful purposes. I have no idea of what Lucas' morals are, but I don't think he'll object to this.

    I don't know if he'd object either, but that's the problem - neither does NASA. It'd probably be fine, but George's lawyers would get to it first, and they'd have a heyday if NASA actually said they were making a Boba Fett robot - especially since it sounds like Boba Fett will be returning for Episode II. Of course, it'd be great publicity, but there's still a chance that NASA would face negative repercussions - they might have to redesign it to make it look different, and if this really is the best design.....

    --

  • Does anyone know how much bandwidth can be achieved between the Shuttle and earth...

    I would think latency would be a bigger issue....?

    --

  • I agree, the chance that it's just a coincidence is minimal, but without George Lucas' approval, they have to say it's coincidental.

    Alternately, the engineers know better than to tell the PR people what it looks like, so of course the PR people assume it's coincidental, since the resemblance to Boba Fett [starwars.com] wasn't documented anywhere.

    --

  • >I agree, the chance that it's just a coincidence
    >is minimal, but without George Lucas' approval,
    >they have to say it's coincidental.

    I don't know if he'll object at all. It's not ripping of any names (unlike a Certain Handheld Device For A Certain Large Military Organization That Shall Remain Nameless), it's a non-commercial project, and it's for peaceful purposes. I have no idea of what Lucas' morals are, but I don't think he'll object to this.

    But yeah, the resemblance is pretty close. If you're right, not telling the PR folks anything was a good move. Smart folks in NASA's engineering corps...
  • 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.

    Those aren't O2 containers. The big orange tank [nasa.gov] contains both liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The two white things are solid rocket boosters [nasa.gov].
  • Yeah, like that car from Nightrider!

    What the heck is NASA thinking? Why hasn't this been developed. They should be ashamed for being beaten by David Hasselhoff.

  • Look, if I'm going to be spending MY money out of MY own pocket I want some cooler robots. I know some people think Boba Fett is pretty cool, but damn, imagine an R2-D2, or Han Solo. Heck, even a Chewbacca would be cooler. Imagine seeing his fur burning on re-entry...
  • I just wanted to say I feel honored by all the technical information ;) Call me a troll (and I just find it amusing) not one comment was made on the point of what I was saying but on my misinformation (sysadmin's don't know all ;) and all redundant at that! Hehe, I guess I'm happy people are reading my posts! Have a great night all, DranoK

    That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
  • IANASWG but I'd say Boba Fett was more "interstellar".
    But then, I'm just a picky git who's probably wrong. As this is slashdot, I'm sure I will be corrected by the time I depress the Submit button.
  • Is it just me, or did they get the proportion of Boba Fett's head to his body wrong? Must be a unit conversion error or something.
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • The lag is pretty bad, as you would know if you've examined satellite internet connections lately. Most likely, it'll be controlled by an astronaut sitting inside the shuttle rather than from the ground.
  • Does anyone know how much bandwidth can be achieved between the Shuttle and earth, you could conrtol this from a control center.

    I was mostly thinking about the interface, that would be so cool because if you were floating and controling a VR unit that was floating it would probably be pretty easy.

    Most VR units suck becuase you have outside forces that don't go with what you are looking at.(in my experiance at Epcot and such.)

    Offtopic
    About the macs in space article a while back, the Eros mission was being run by a modified Apple Power Mac 9500.
    ...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
  • What happens to all the astronauts who have trained for many years of their life to do this type of stuff safely, if a robot suddenly comes along? I expect the robot will probably break down occasionally, and so will need repairing by a human hand, but still - those guys have invested a lot in their future and it seems like they could likely loose a lot of their necessity when (if) robots come onto the market.
    By the way - anyone know how they evaluate this kind of technology? Take prototypes up with them in the shuttle and see how they work or is there a cheaper way of doing it?

    -Evo.
  • Soon, NASA will develop satellites with AI that will be delivered in the shuttle, but the astronauts will have to convince it to come out.
  • This robot does not have the ability to operate on it's own. The optimal interface to control such a robot would be telepresence. Telepresense hooks up a human operator with a head set and sensors to track arm, hand and body movement from the torso up. By keeping the robot's dimensions and range of motion the same as the human operator, the operator is able to control the robot with greater precision and with less training.
  • odd. I thought the big orange tank contained tang. :)

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

  • odd. I thought Boba Fett was a Mandalorian guy.
  • As previous replies have stated it has nothing to do with badnwidth and all to do with latancy. A few years back I was at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA. and they had an exhibit where you controled a robot arm - only you had lag between your signal being sent, and a display back from the arm. This was simulating running an arm on (I believe) the moon - and let me tell you - it was darned tough to do anything!

    From what I've seen from the Pathfinder and the (sigh) Polar Lander's concepts - there could be some subroutines that you can trigger remotely. Also, since the intent of the space station is to have people aboard I don't see why someone there couldn't show the robot where the repairs are needed.
  • A: They live longer to train for many more years of their life to repair and maintain and operate these robots.

    You say they train to do their job safely - it is true safety is a major factor of/for training, but that doesn't mean that a space walk is any safer than walking a tightrope - people train all thier lives to walk the tightrope and still some get hurt.
  • Granted, five-finger dexterity is impressive (how else could a robot flip someone the bird?), but for the tasks which this thing is supposed to accomplish, wouldn't a claw be cheaper/lower maintenance/logical?

    There are a couple of reasons why using a five-fingered, human sized configuration makes good sense.

    As Lister of Smeg mentioned, it allows for more intuitive control of the robot using VR glove type interfaces.

    However, there is a more important reason: if its roughly the same size and configuration of a normal human (in terms of hands, etc), then it should be capable of using and manipulating standard tools. This way only one set of tools needs to be taken up into space - rather than having to take a set designed for human and a set designed for robotic use. The Honda Humanoid Robot [honda.co.jp] was designed with this concept in mind.

  • The justification is that the anthropomorphic design provides a more intuitive control. I actually don't think having five fingers is that bad but making the robot look like a human seems kind of pointless. I would think you could still get intuitive control with a more skeletal, simpler (read: easier to produce and maintain) design.
  • The likeness between Robonaut and 'Star Wars' bounty hunter Boba Fett is strictly a coincidence, NASA said

    Sure...
    ===
    -J
  • I'm having a hard time buying that it "accidentally" looks like a minor Star Wars character. First of all, the likeness is nearly exact. Second, half the young geeks I've met are either Star Wars freaks or have reached their post-Star Wars period.

    Their managers probably don't want to admit it was intentional because they're worried about a lawsuit and/or getting their monkeys spanked. Remember "project Sagan," later known as "Butt-head Astronomer?"

  • and give it the personality of EV-9D9?
  • Girl? Try Gungan. I firmly predict that when Episode II comes out, the face behind the mask of the universe's most kick-ass bounty hunter will be none other than that of Jar-Jar Binks [brunching.com]. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Of course, I'm staying well away from any rumors which might in any way spoil it for me...


    --Fesh

  • Just as a minor aside, the two side containers are not for O2, they are actually solid rocket boosters. The LOX is in the large external tank with the liquid hydrogen (the external tank is divided into multiple subtanks). If the side boosters had been merely O2 containers, Challenger wouldn't have gone boom...

    jim nutt
  • What i really need is something that wont complain about smells .. so that it can do my dirty laundry
  • "...bears a small, apparently 'coincidental' semblance (in the face) to intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett."

    Early today, at great taxpayer expense, NASA issued a recall, in order to remove a back-mounted, launchable bright red missile from the robot. A NASA spokesman cited "concerned parents" as the reason.

  • Robots are a pay-once type of deal; you don't need to pay again unless they break.

    Uh, no. Think of the boring ol' robots they use to make cars. These are replaced every few years as the parts wear out. They aren't always as cost-effective as you might like.

    Now for space exploration, robots are really good. Consider the Apollo mission. Most of the payload was just stuff to keep three people alive in a completely hostile environment. Robots just need electricity.

  • but.. (Score:1)

    by Tarsh ( 144250 )
    Who fixed it when it breaks down in space? :)
  • Daaaaaaa.. Daaaaaaa DAAAAAAAA DEEE-Daaaa..... BOng, Bong, BOng, Bong, BOng, Bong, BOng, Bong....

    I think all space robots should first have to win a gold medal in the Robot Wars (http://www.robotwars.com/)

    -Effendi
  • Well, it looks damn scary to me. It scared my children too. It looks like something Asimov had drawn on the covers of his books.

    Please fix it's scaryness.
  • It would take ~2 seconds for data to earth and ~2 second to get instructions to orbit.
    So lagtime would be 2-5 seconds, no matter bandwith, so it would be impossible to control the robot from earth as smallest mistake might take you from estimated course.
    We assume that information is transferred at the speed of light.
    Of course it could be done with heavy precalculated courses, but then VR would be useless.
    Bandwith increases amount of information transferred, but it still has to travel to destination.
  • Seems to me they would be the most qualified people to operate the machines. Not so much that their role was replaced, just changed to be somewhat safer.
  • His armor was, not sure of his race though.
    I remember reading of his origin in "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" but I really don't remember (it's been a while and I don't have the book at work)
  • It's the ROBonaut! He even has five fingers so he could post articles to /. from space. The possibilities are endless. I can't wait for the upcoming partner robot, Maldanaut!

  • I actually don't think having five fingers is that bad but making the robot look like a human seems kind of pointless.

    They should make it look like Natalie Portman.

  • As the article states; humans are a long way from replacing themselves with machines. The likelyhood this will happen in our lifetime is slim; then again, nobody will ever need more memory than 640k either. :) The increases in human knowledge will outpace AI reseach for many years to come, unfortunately. For example: Big Blue can think of more possible chess moves in a second than most people think of in an hour. But Bobby Fisher could "see the obvious."

    Until we have the ability make robots "see the obvious" the human element will always be necessary...

  • When people think NASA, they think men in space. It is in many ways a waste of money to put people in space, but that is what congressmen want and therefore that is what we get. For each billion NASA spends on the space shuttle, we get a billion or so to do actuall science.

    This robot will be able to fix satellites that humans can't because the space shuttle can't reach a high enough orbit to get to many of them. Plus the robot needs no food o2 etc. And a one space shuttle mission costs many times the amount a simple satellite costs. Even though we really don't need them, there will probably continue to be humans in space for quiet a while to come. Not that I can't blame them -- I would LOVE to go to space for no scientific reason as well :)
  • Maybe it IS Bobba Fett?

    But seriously, this is a cool project. Eventually 3D games might become a little more real by a company that does something like this. Maybe something like a real-life MechWarrior? I know I'd like to play with big, big robots like that...
  • Hmmm..this site, specifically the page about the head [nasa.gov] claims that "the design was inspired by Centurian armor [toymania.com], giving Robonaut some attitude."

    Still looks more like Boba Fett to me...
  • When /. posted about the hamburger-making robot. It was pointed out that the robot's arm was way too complexe for the job and seemed to be there to impress. I feel the same way about this one.

    Granted, five-finger dexterity is impressive (how else could a robot flip someone the bird?), but for the tasks which this thing is supposed to accomplish, wouldn't a claw be cheaper/lower maintenance/logical?

  • I know this will probably get super modded down, but...

    Is it me or is NASA spending an inordinate amount of time promoting itself. I watch the news in the morning and it is amazing how often NASA comes up. Not to mention slashdot.

    Now I find space exploration interesting, but NASA is putting out more PR than big corporations. Ever seen a copy of NASA Tech Briefs...pure fluff almost.

    For instance, this article really didn't contain much information. This probably has been sitting on the NASA website for months and no one picked it up there.

    One more instance of this type of thing, I have seen NASA divisons at conferences renting booths beside Corporations in the industrial exhibits. How is this legal? I don't want NASA to be spending my taxpayer money on PR.
  • Eventually, what if for a basic maintenance voyage no human need go along at all?

    We're not interested in operating the Universe by VR remote-control. We want to get our physical DNA out there, soon, and in quantity. Earth orbit isn't much of a destination. We need to set our sights considerably higher.


  • Agreed. More and more, this not-so-subtle homage is appearing in engineering design (hell, I work a few streets away from a company called Jedi). It's kind of depressing b/c I always hoped it would be more subtle, you know? Something only a diehard geek would recognize (I'm sure there's tons of that already out there that I'm missing ;-). Lack of creativity is always somewhat depressing. I'm sure the code for controlling the robot is far more creative than its aesthetic.

    You know, I thought about this when Terminator 1 was released. I always thought that should we ever (when we ever) get to the point where we can design robotic/cybernetic hit-men, who could resist programming it to say "Hasta la vista, Baby" (sorry if I butchered that). In effect, this becomes a self-fufulling prophecy, similar to the one used in T-2.

    ---
  • ...the two white O2 containers are picked up and reused) and in the future something that will be competley reusuable except for the fuel cos

    Those aren't O2 tanks they are solid fuel rocket boosters, most of the thrust comes from those puppies.
    Once you light those they stay lit until they are exhausted.
  • FART!

    I'm not trolling, i'm performing an advanced test of The VIA Athlon/700 Beowulfed mySQL DBI IGK || ::Slashapp(Slashdot) setup. How many hits can it take? Can it really keep up with IIS/WinBLOZE 2000!

    It's so I can determine if Open Source is really secure or not, and whether my PHB will understand LInox! Ha ha! Where's the roach from USER FRIENDLY when you need him to take care of my cretin boss! Get your lightsabers! We're ALL SO FUCKING RELEVANT.

    What a crazy fun slashdot life!

  • The article says "the design was inspired by Centurian armor" ...more likely than not for the same reasons why a helmet is useful (to protect it's contents). Could it be that this is convergence and not infringement as Bobba Fett might have been based off of historical armor? Bobba Fett was pretty damn cool...for a girl.
  • Yes the head is a pretty blatant rip-off. I was shocked at first at how anthropomorphic this thing looked, but once I read that it was going to be controlled thru VR it made sense. You need to keep a familiar arrangement of limbs for the human controller, but the head? All you need for the head is a couple of camera's mounted on a pole to go thru the motions of a normal person's head... the covering may be for shielding the camera's but it still seems a bit much..
  • Who fixed it when it breaks down in space? :)
    QBasic robots perhaps?
  • The site is Slashdotted. Google cache is here [google.com].

    -qbasicprogrammer
  • ..it runs QBasic?
  • If you are interested in more stories like this try space.com [space.com]. I read this story yesterday there and found some neat pictures about other things that nasa has been up to. They have some really neat pictures of some celestial objects.

    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.

    send flames > /dev/null

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • How many high-risk jobs on earth could be done using some more evoluted model of this robot?

    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.
    Technology is useless in the hands of a wrong culture ... Just think of the Internet.

  • NASA's been playing around with this idea since the early 1980s. See their photo page [nasa.gov] for previous robotics projects, especially the Flight Telerobotic Servicer.

    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...

  • 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 :-)

  • Space hijinx (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @04:40PM (#1001863)
    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.

  • About the bot (Score:3)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @03:11PM (#1001864)
    Subsystems
    Hand [nasa.gov]| Arms [nasa.gov]| Head [nasa.gov]| Controls [nasa.gov]| Avionics [nasa.gov]| Telepresence [nasa.gov]|
    Videos (.AVI)
    Hand (5.3 M) [nasa.gov]| Telepresenc e (3.3 M) [nasa.gov]| Arm motion (2.9 M) [nasa.gov]| Grasping (2.1 M) [nasa.gov]| Tether hook (1.9 M) [nasa.gov]| Velcro (2.7 M) [nasa.gov]|
    Tools
    Analysis tools [nasa.gov]| Software development [nasa.gov]| Telepresence Laboratory [nasa.gov]
    ___

  • Virtual Reality Interfaces (Score:3)

    by Dungeon Dweller ( 134014 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @02:21PM (#1001865)
    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).

  • More Information (Score:4)

    by adastra ( 25328 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @02:38PM (#1001866)
    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. [nasa.gov]

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