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 ]

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.

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".

(Marty Feldman) wrote:
[...]
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.


Was there an example in the article you're commenting on?

i will now ordain that the words for the next month or two will be
"merit" and "obtuse".


Were these chosen for a reason, or at random?

/dps

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