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Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA'sRobonaut (Forwarded)
[From December 4, 2003 issue of RICE NEWS]
Office of News & Media Relations Rice University Houston, Texas Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA's Robonaut BY JADE BOYD, Rice News Staff Everyone could use an extra set of hands every now and then, and if two Rice researchers and a crack team of scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) have their way, astronauts aboard the International Space Station just might get their extra set. NASA's Robonaut project aims to create a humanoid robot to function as a second set of eyes, arms and hands on spacewalks. Two Rice assistant professors -- Marcia O'Malley of mechanical engineering and materials science and Nancy Niedzielski of linguistics -- are working on the project, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. The project is based at the Robot Systems Technology Branch at JSC. NASA chose to build a humanoid robot because space flight hardware has been designed for servicing by astronauts making spacewalks, known in the NASA lexicon as extravehicular activities, or EVAs. In addition to being performed to conduct repairs, numerous EVAs will be required to assemble the components of the space station. So NASA will need all the hands it can get on these spacewalks. Which is not to say that Robonaut will replace any astronauts. The robot will not think for itself. It will be attached to the robotic arm of the space shuttle or space station and will be tele-operated by a trained astronaut inside the spacecraft. Using a 3-D virtual-reality helmet and two joysticks, the astronaut inside the craft will see what Robonaut sees, feel what it feels outside the craft and will be able to control its movements accordingly. It may sound like a simple concept, but making a robot that can duplicate even the simplest of human tasks is extremely challenging. For example, O'Malley's work on the project involves the "haptic" interface used in the robot's control system. Haptic, a term that originated in psychology, refers to the perception of touch. Among the myriad sensors on Robonaut -- up to 150 in each arm -- several allow the astronaut operator to sense where the robot is and the amount of force that Robonaut is exerting in the environment. Encoding the software needed to move that information from the robot's arm to the operator -- and allow the astronaut to react to it -- is very complicated. In a test this summer, for example, O'Malley said human operators using the two Robonaut prototypes at JSC were asked to hold a soccer ball at arm's length between both hands and move it in a circle in front of their chests. Surprisingly, this very simple act created serious problems for the robot's control system. "They were dropping the ball -- literally -- more often than not, " said O'Malley. The problem turned out to be a slight but significant delay in the time it was taking to transfer information between the robot's arms and the operator. "They would push with both arms, and they wouldn't feel anything, so they would push some more, just to make sure they had a tight grip on the ball," said O'Malley. "Then, the original signal would finally get to them, and they would feel the pressure. They would respond by relaxing, but they wouldn't feel that right away. Instead, they would feel the increased pressure they had applied earlier, so they would relax even more, and then the whole cycle would start over again." O'Malley and her colleagues were eventually able to solve the problem by inserting some additional programming that compensated for the delay. Like O'Malley's work, Niedzielski's is also critical for the control of the robot. Niedzielski is part of six-member team that is creating a voice-recognition system that the tele-operator will use for added control of Robonaut. "If your hand movements are being transmitted directly to the robot's hands, it's not like you can reach over and touch a button on a control panel," Niedzielski said. "We'd like to give the astronaut the ability to do things like freeze one arm after they get it positioned just right." Niedzielski's team hopes to design a voice-recognition system that is capable of operating both on the ground and in space, and is thus sensitive to changes in vocal quality that results from these very different conditions. Human listeners can adjust to these changes effortlessly. But scientists don't yet fully understand how the human brain interprets language, so they're hard-pressed to teach a computer to do it. For instance, "so much of the meaning we attach to words comes from context, and it's very difficult to teach a computer to rely on context," said Niedzielski. Moreover, the system must be flexible enough to compensate for the physiological changes that astronauts undergo in orbit. For instance, astronauts' nasal passages expand in microgravity, and as a result, the tone of their speech changes. Niedzielski said the voice-recognition team faces a real challenge in creating a system that can adapt to these kind of changes. O'Malley and Niedzielski both look forward to working on the Robonaut project for several years. If all goes according to NASA's timeline, their work and the work of dozens of other specialists will pay off with Robonaut's initial flight in about five years. [NOTE: An image supporting this article is available at http://www.riceinfo.rice.edu/project.../robonaut.html ] |
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Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA'sRobonaut (Forwarded)
Andrew Yee wrote:
[snip] Two Rice assistant professors -- Marcia O'Malley of mechanical engineering and materials science and Nancy Niedzielski of linguistics -- are working on the project, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. The project is based at the Robot Systems Technology Branch at JSC. NASA chose to build a humanoid robot because space flight hardware has been designed for servicing by astronauts making spacewalks, known in the NASA lexicon as extravehicular activities, or EVAs. In addition to being performed to conduct repairs, numerous EVAs will be required to assemble the components of the space station. So NASA will need all the hands it can get on these spacewalks. Which is not to say that Robonaut will replace any astronauts. The robot will not think for itself. It will be attached to the robotic arm of the space shuttle or space station and will be tele-operated by a trained astronaut inside the spacecraft. Using a 3-D virtual-reality helmet and two joysticks, the astronaut inside the craft will see what Robonaut sees, feel what it feels outside the craft and will be able to control its movements accordingly. It may sound like a simple concept, but making a robot that can duplicate even the simplest of human tasks is extremely challenging. For example, O'Malley's work on the project involves the "haptic" interface used in the robot's control system. Haptic, a term that originated in psychology, refers to the perception of touch. Among the myriad sensors on Robonaut -- up to 150 in each arm -- several allow the astronaut operator to sense where the robot is and the amount of force that Robonaut is exerting in the environment. Encoding the software needed to move that information from the robot's arm to the operator -- and allow the astronaut to react to it -- is very complicated. In a test this summer, for example, O'Malley said human operators using the two Robonaut prototypes at JSC were asked to hold a soccer ball at arm's length between both hands and move it in a circle in front of their chests. Surprisingly, this very simple act created serious problems for the robot's control system. "They were dropping the ball -- literally -- more often than not, " said O'Malley. The problem turned out to be a slight but significant delay in the time it was taking to transfer information between the robot's arms and the operator. "They would push with both arms, and they wouldn't feel anything, so they would push some more, just to make sure they had a tight grip on the ball," said O'Malley. "Then, the original signal would finally get to them, and they would feel the pressure. They would respond by relaxing, but they wouldn't feel that right away. Instead, they would feel the increased pressure they had applied earlier, so they would relax even more, and then the whole cycle would start over again." O'Malley and her colleagues were eventually able to solve the problem by inserting some additional programming that compensated for the delay. Like O'Malley's work, Niedzielski's is also critical for the control of the robot. Niedzielski is part of six-member team that is creating a voice-recognition system that the tele-operator will use for added control of Robonaut. "If your hand movements are being transmitted directly to the robot's hands, it's not like you can reach over and touch a button on a control panel," Niedzielski said. "We'd like to give the astronaut the ability to do things like freeze one arm after they get it positioned just right." Niedzielski's team hopes to design a voice-recognition system that is capable of operating both on the ground and in space, and is thus sensitive to changes in vocal quality that results from these very different conditions. Human listeners can adjust to these changes effortlessly. But scientists don't yet fully understand how the human brain interprets language, so they're hard-pressed to teach a computer to do it. For instance, "so much of the meaning we attach to words comes from context, and it's very difficult to teach a computer to rely on context," said Niedzielski. Moreover, the system must be flexible enough to compensate for the physiological changes that astronauts undergo in orbit. For instance, astronauts' nasal passages expand in microgravity, and as a result, the tone of their speech changes. Niedzielski said the voice-recognition team faces a real challenge in creating a system that can adapt to these kind of changes. O'Malley and Niedzielski both look forward to working on the Robonaut project for several years. If all goes according to NASA's timeline, their work and the work of dozens of other specialists will pay off with Robonaut's initial flight in about five years. [NOTE: An image supporting this article is available at http://www.riceinfo.rice.edu/project.../robonaut.html ] Marcia Marcia Marcia! -Haptic interface -Voice recognition -Language context interpretation -Teleoperation of robots This is all very cool stuff! But it sounds like a huge engineering challenge for anyone of these points (teleoperation excepted) to become useful as an application. Hasn't Microsoft been working on voice recognition for awhile? They throw a product out here and there, but nothing reliable enough to be a killer app in the word processing arena. Haptic interface seems like a long ways off. I don't know how far NASA or RICE has progressed on this, but until they can calibrate a PGT or remove/reinstall a hatch cover in zero g at a +/- 250 deg F, then there's not much applicability here. I wish the money were spent on AERCam/SPRINT, which would at least stand a chance for success. My guess is that NASA will cancel its part of Robonaut within the next year or so and DARPA will take over the science and do R&D towards ground based applications. |
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Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA's Robonaut (Forwarded)
Andrew Yee wrote in message m...
[From December 4, 2003 issue of RICE NEWS] Office of News & Media Relations Rice University Houston, Texas Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA's Robonaut BY JADE BOYD, Rice News Staff Everyone could use an extra set of hands every now and then, and if two Rice researchers and a crack team of scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) have their way, astronauts aboard the International Space Station just might get their extra set. NASA's Robonaut project aims to create a humanoid robot to function as a second set of eyes, arms and hands on spacewalks. Two Rice assistant professors -- Marcia O'Malley of mechanical engineering and materials science and Nancy Niedzielski of linguistics -- are working on the project, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. The project is based at the Robot Systems Technology Branch at JSC. NASA chose to build a humanoid robot because space flight hardware has been designed for servicing by astronauts making spacewalks, known in the NASA lexicon after much thought and consideration, i've concluded i'm either completely delusional or it's just not too hard to inject particular words into the lexicon of hard news, and in turn, gets repeated over, and over, and over. words such as battered (as in battered idealist), obviously (as in blinding glimpse of the obvious), etc. apparently, journalists and the entire incestuous journalist culture, always read each other's work and being the literate minds that they are, suck up words like there's no tomorrow. (i.e. think of a hard, dry sponge on a rainy day...or a prostitute walking into a tom delay fundraiser.) i will now ordain that the words for the next month or two will be "merit" and "obtuse". |
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Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA's Robonaut (Forwarded)
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Humanities, engineering contribute expertise in developing NASA's Robonaut (Forwarded)
stmx3 wrote:
[...] Marcia Marcia Marcia! -Haptic interface -Voice recognition -Language context interpretation -Teleoperation of robots This is all very cool stuff! But it sounds like a huge engineering challenge for anyone of these points (teleoperation excepted) to become useful as an application. Hasn't Microsoft been working on voice recognition for awhile? They throw a product out here and there, but nothing reliable enough to be a killer app in the word processing arena. MS and the other "voice word processor" types (Dragon Type?) are trying to solve a much more genereal problem. Having an application-specific domain helps a lot in both the context and vocabulary departments. Haptic interface seems like a long ways off. I don't know how far NASA or RICE has progressed on this, but until they can calibrate a PGT or remove/reinstall a hatch cover in zero g at a +/- 250 deg F, then there's not much applicability here. I think you'r asking for more than is needed in phase 1. It was, what, a coouple of months ago?, that there was a release and photos of work session with the Robonauts. I think Peggy Whitson did the tasks, and the Robonauts handed tools to her, and did other simple assistance roles that actually made the task go faster. More bang for the human buck, as it were. Which is no small thing in itself. Plus no pre-breathe for half the EVA crew! I wish the money were spent on AERCam/SPRINT, which would at least stand a chance for success. My guess is that NASA will cancel its part of Robonaut within the next year or so and DARPA will take over the science and do R&D towards ground based applications. I think you're underestimating the progress and the intermediate benefits of Robonaut. And AERCam is nice, but it can't hold a candle to Robonaut -- or anything else,either! /dps |
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