Premise: Lunar resources can be used to make space exploration beyond LEO more affordable and to ... more Premise: Lunar resources can be used to make space exploration beyond LEO more affordable and to bring direct benefits back to Earth. Discussions will include "on-ramps" for inserting lunar resources into the lunar architecture, resource prospecting, technologies and technology demonstrations, and lunar resource products and applications.
NASA's Human Space Flight program depends heavily on spacewalks performed by human astronauts... more NASA's Human Space Flight program depends heavily on spacewalks performed by human astronauts. These so-called extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) are risky, expensive and complex. Work is underway to develop a robotic astronaut's assistant that can help ...
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 1, 2011
The development of the Robonaut 2 (R2) system was a joint endeavor with NASA and General Motors, ... more The development of the Robonaut 2 (R2) system was a joint endeavor with NASA and General Motors, producing robots strong enough to do work, yet safe enough to be trusted to work near humans. To date two R2 units have been produced, designated as R2A and R2B. This follows more than a decade of work on the Robonaut 1 units that produced advances in dexterity, tele-presence, remote supervision across time delay, combining mobility with manipulation, human-robot interaction, force control and autonomous grasping. Design challenges for the R2 included higher speed, smaller packaging, more dexterous fingers, more sensitive perception, soft drivetrain design, and the overall implementation of a system software approach for human safety. Future plans for R2 include a series of upgrades, evolving from static IVA (Intravehicular Activity) operations, to mobile IVA, then EVA (Extravehicular Activity).
NASA pushes telerobotics to distances that span the Solar System. At this scale, time of flight f... more NASA pushes telerobotics to distances that span the Solar System. At this scale, time of flight for communication is limited by the speed of light, inducing long time delays, narrow bandwidth and the real risk of data disruption. NASA also supports missions where humans are in direct contact with robots during extravehicular activity (EVA), giving a range of zero to hundreds of millions of miles for NASA's definition of "tele". Another temporal variable is mission phasing. NASA missions are now being considered that combine early robotic phases with later human arrival, then transition back to robot only operations. Robots can preposition, scout, sample or construct in advance of human teammates, transition to assistant roles when the crew are present, and then become caretakers when the crew returns to Earth. This paper will describe advances in robot safety and command interaction approaches developed to form effective human-robot teams, overcoming challenges of time delay and adapting as the team transitions from robot only to robots and crew. The work is predicated on the idea that when robots are alone in space, they are still part of a human-robot team acting as surrogates for people back on Earth or in other distant locations. Software, interaction modes and control methods will be described that can operate robots in all these conditions. A novel control mode for operating robots across time delay was developed using a graphical simulation on the human side of the communication, allowing a remote supervisor to drive and command a robot in simulation with no time delay, then monitor progress of the actual robot as data returns from the round trip to and from the robot. Since the robot must be responsible for safety out to at least the round trip time period, the authors developed a multi layer safety system able to detect and protect the robot and people in its workspace. This safety system is also running when humans are in direct contact with the robot, so it involves both internal fault detection as well as force sensing for unintended external contacts. The designs for the supervisory command mode and the redundant safety system will be described. Specific implementations were developed and test results will be reported. Experiments were conducted using terrestrial analogs for deep space missions, where time delays were artificially added to emulate the longer distances found in space.
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Apr 26, 2004
Space walking is poorly named, as it has little in common with how animals walk on Earth. Space w... more Space walking is poorly named, as it has little in common with how animals walk on Earth. Space walking is more akin to mountain climbing in scuba gear, while parachuting in a freefall-an odd combination of effects and equipment to help people do a demanding job. Robots are now being studied for service in this same domain, working on large scale space structures like the Space Station, servicing science or military platforms in high orbit, or riding on the outside of a space craft in transit to Mars, the Moon or other destinations. What have we learned about climbing in Og? How should machines be controlled for serving in this role? What can they do to overcome the problems that humans have faced? In order to move about in this environment, a robot must be able to climb autonomously, using gaits that smoothly manage its momentum and that minimize contact forces (walking lightly) while providing for safety in the event of an emergency requiring the system to stop. All three of these objectives are now being explored at NASA's Johnson Space Center, using the Robonaut system and a set of mockups that emulate the Og condition. NASA's goal for Robonaut is to develop the control technology that will allow it to climb on the outside of the Space Shuttle, the Space Station, and satellite mockups at JSC, enabling the robot to perform EVA task setups or serve as an Astronaut's assistant.
NASA is transforming human spaceflight. The Agency is shifting from an exploration-based program ... more NASA is transforming human spaceflight. The Agency is shifting from an exploration-based program with human activities in low Earth orbit (LEO) and targeted robotic missions in deep space to a more sustainable and integrated pioneering approach. However, pioneering space involves daunting technical challenges of transportation, maintaining health, and enabling crew productivity for long durations in remote, hostile, and alien environments. Subject matter experts from NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) are currently studying a human exploration campaign that involves deployment of assets for planetary exploration. This study, called the Evolvable Mars Campaign (EMC) study, explores options with solar electric propulsion as a central component of the transportation architecture. This particular in-space transportation option often results in long duration transit to destinations. The EMC study is also investigating deployed human rated systems like landers, habitats, rovers, power systems and ISRU system to the surface of Mars, which also will involve long dormant periods when these systems are staged on the surface. In order to enable the EMC architecture, campaign and element design leads along with system and capability development experts from HEOMD's System Maturation Team (SMT) have identified additional capabilities, systems and operation modes that will sustain these systems especially during these dormant phases of the mission. Dormancy is defined by the absence of crew and relative inactivity of the systems. For EMC missions, dormant periods could range from several months to several years. Two aspects of uncrewed dormant operations are considered herein: (1) the vehicle systems that are placed in a dormant state and (2) the autonomous vehicle systems and robotic capabilities that monitor, maintain, and repair the vehicle and systems. This paper describes the mission stages of dormancy operations, phases of dormant operations, and critical system capabilities that are needed for dormant operations. This paper will compare dormancy operations of past robotic missions to identify lessons that can be applied to planned human exploration missions. Finally, this paper will also identify future work and analysis planned to assess system performance metrics and integrated system operations.
The President s Vision for Space Exploration, laid out in 2004, relies heavily upon robotic explo... more The President s Vision for Space Exploration, laid out in 2004, relies heavily upon robotic exploration of the lunar surface in early phases of the program. Prior to the arrival of astronauts on the lunar surface, these robots will be required to be controlled across space and time, posing a considerable challenge for traditional telepresence techniques. Because time delays will be measured in seconds, not minutes as is the case for Mars Exploration, uploading the plan for a day seems excessive. An approach for controlling dexterous robots under intermediate time delay is presented, in which software running within a ground control cockpit predicts the intention of an immersed robot supervisor, then the remote robot autonomously executes the supervisor s intended tasks. Initial results are presented.
A laboratory model of the NASA Resource Prospector climbs loose sandy slopes via dynamic terrain ... more A laboratory model of the NASA Resource Prospector climbs loose sandy slopes via dynamic terrain remodeling.
Robotics: State of the Art and Future Challenges, Jul 1, 2008
BACKGROUND This chapter describes research activities currently conducted in the world that are r... more BACKGROUND This chapter describes research activities currently conducted in the world that are related to robotics for biological and medical applications. Robotics for medical applications started fifteen years ago while for biological applications it is rather new (about five years old). In this chapter, we first discuss why we need robots and automation in biology and medicine. Then we present robotic tools, devices and systems, key technologies, and fundamental research challenges that are relevant to the two applications. Research activities conducted and visited by the assessment team in the U.S., Japan, Korea and Europe are introduced. WHY ROBOTS AND AUTOMATION IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Biological Applications The primary purpose for use of robotics in biology is to achieve high throughput in experiments related to research and development of life science. Those experiments involve the delivery and dispensation of biological samples/solutions in large numbers each with very small volumes. Typical applications include high-throughput systems for large-scale DNA sequencing, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, haplotype mapping, compound screening for drug development, and bio-solution mixing and dispensing for membrane protein crystallization. Without robots and automation, biosamples/solutions must be handled manually by human hands, which is not only tedious but also slow. Various robotic systems have been developed in laboratories that are either specially developed for a particular application (Fig. 6.1) or integration of commercially available robots, general purpose tools and sensors. The second purpose of robotics for biological applications is for effective handling and exploration of molecular and cell biology. This type of application includes immobilization of individual cells, cell manipulation, and cell injection for pronuclei DNA insertion. Special tools fabricated using different technologies have to be developed such as lasers for microsensing and manipulating, electroactive polymer for cell manipulation, and microneedles for cell penetration. Another interesting area of application is robotics-inspired algorithms for molecular and cellular biology. This includes the work for predicting protein folding, and for structural biology (Zheng and Chen, 2004). Medical Applications Research on robotics for medical applications started fifteen years ago and is very active today. The purpose is threefold. First it is for robotic surgery. Robotic surgery can accomplish what doctors cannot because of precision and repeatability of robotic systems. Besides, robots are able to operate in a contained space inside
Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292)
An automated tether system has been developed for the purpose of improving the efficiency of micr... more An automated tether system has been developed for the purpose of improving the efficiency of micro-gravity activities of fully suited astronauts. System features include gripping of multiple anchor types, remote release of the tether from an anchor, and controlled retraction of the tether. Two main mechanisms make up the system. First, a remotely releasable, self-locking robotic gripper with opposing jaws that grasps a variety of anchors such as handrails, tether loops, and guide wires. Second, an automated tether retractor that is capable of active or passive operation. Passive retractor operation saves power by emulating existing safety tether systems and active operation expedites tether retraction and allows towing.
An experimental investigation of actuators for space robots
Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
A two degree of freedom robot joint module was designed and built for the space environment, and ... more A two degree of freedom robot joint module was designed and built for the space environment, and evaluated in a thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The hypothesis was that servo dynamics would change across the wide temperature range of space, and a series of chamber experiments showed thermal adaptation is required to maintain response and stability over
provides assessments of international research and development in selected technologies under awa... more provides assessments of international research and development in selected technologies under awards from
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Papers by Robert Ambrose