NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review. Executive summary

Research and Development projects in automation technology for the Space Station are described. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics

Technology assessment of advanced automation for space missions

Six general classes of technology requirements derived during the mission definition phase of the study were identified as having maximum importance and urgency, including autonomous world model based information systems, learning and hypothesis formation, natural language and other man-machine communication, space manufacturing, teleoperators and robot systems, and computer science and technology

Third International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation for Space 1994

The Third International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation for Space (i-SAIRAS 94), held October 18-20, 1994, in Pasadena, California, was jointly sponsored by NASA, ESA, and Japan's National Space Development Agency, and was hosted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology. i-SAIRAS 94 featured presentations covering a variety of technical and programmatic topics, ranging from underlying basic technology to specific applications of artificial intelligence and robotics to space missions. i-SAIRAS 94 featured a special workshop on planning and scheduling and provided scientists, engineers, and managers with the opportunity to exchange theoretical ideas, practical results, and program plans in such areas as space mission control, space vehicle processing, data analysis, autonomous spacecraft, space robots and rovers, satellite servicing, and intelligent instruments

Automation and robotics human performance

The scope of this report is limited to the following: (1) assessing the feasibility of the assumptions for crew productivity during the intra-vehicular activities and extra-vehicular activities; (2) estimating the appropriate level of automation and robotics to accomplish balanced man-machine, cost-effective operations in space; (3) identifying areas where conceptually different approaches to the use of people and machines can leverage the benefits of the scenarios; and (4) recommending modifications to scenarios or developing new scenarios that will improve the expected benefits. The FY89 special assessments are grouped into the five categories shown in the report. The high level system analyses for Automation & Robotics (A&R) and Human Performance (HP) were performed under the Case Studies Technology Assessment category, whereas the detailed analyses for the critical systems and high leverage development areas were performed under the appropriate operations categories (In-Space Vehicle Operations or Planetary Surface Operations). The analysis activities planned for the Science Operations technology areas were deferred to FY90 studies. The remaining activities such as analytic tool development, graphics/video demonstrations and intelligent communicating systems software architecture were performed under the Simulation & Validations category

Advancing automation and robotics technology for the Space Station and for the US economy, volume 2

In response to Public Law 98-371, dated July 18, 1984, the NASA Advanced Technology Advisory Committee has studied automation and robotics for use in the Space Station. The Technical Report, Volume 2, provides background information on automation and robotics technologies and their potential and documents: the relevant aspects of Space Station design; representative examples of automation and robotics; applications; the state of the technology and advances needed; and considerations for technology transfer to U.S. industry and for space commercialization

Intent-Recognition-Based Traded Control for Telerobotic Assembly over High-Latency Telemetry

As we deploy robotic manipulation systems into unstructured real-world environments, the tasks which those robots are expected to perform grow very quickly in complexity. These tasks require a greater number of possible actions, more variable environmental conditions, and larger varieties of objects and materials which need to be manipulated. This in turn leads to a greater number of ways in which elements of a task can fail. When the cost of task failure is high, such as in the case of surgery or on-orbit robotic interventions, effective and efficient task recovery is essential. Despite ever-advancing capabilities, however, the current and near future state-of-the-art in fully autonomous robotic manipulation is still insufficient for many tasks in these critical applications. Thus, successful application of robotic manipulation in many application domains still necessitates a human operator to directly teleoperate the robots over some communications infrastructure. However, any such infrastructure always incurs some unavoidable round-trip telemetry latency depending on the distances involved and the type of remote environment. While direct teleoperation is appropriate when a human operator is physically close to the robots being controlled, there are still many applications in which such proximity is infeasible. In applications which require a robot to be far from its human operator, this latency can approach the speed of the relevant task dynamics, and performing the task with direct telemanipulation can become increasingly difficult, if not impossible. For example, round-trip delays for ground-controlled on-orbit robotic manipulation can reach multiple seconds depending on the infrastructure used and the location of the remote robot. The goal of this thesis is to advance the state-of-the art in semi-autonomous telemanipulation under multi-second round-trip communications latency between a human operator and remote robot in order to enable more telerobotic applications. We propose a new intent-recognition-based traded control (IRTC) approach which automatically infers operator intent and executes task elements which the human operator would otherwise be unable to perform. What makes our approach more powerful than the current approaches is that we prioritize preserving the operator's direct manual interaction with the remote environment while only trading control over to an autonomous subsystem when the operator-local intent recognition system automatically determines what the operator is trying to accomplish. This enables operators to perform unstructured and a priori unplanned actions in order to quickly recover from critical task failures. Furthermore, this thesis also describes a methodology for introducing and improving semi-autonomous control in critical applications. Specifically, this thesis reports (1) the demonstration of a prototype system for IRTC-based grasp assistance in the context of transatlantic telemetry delays, (2) the development of a systems framework for IRTC in semi-autonomous telemanipulation, and (3) an evaluation of the usability and efficacy of that framework with an increasingly complex assembly task. The results from our human subjects experiments show that, when incorporated with sufficient lower-level capabilities, IRTC is a promising approach to extend the reach and capabilities of on-orbit telerobotics and future in-space operations

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 4

Papers presented at the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics are compiled. The theme of the conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for the application of telerobotic technology to the space systems planned for the 1990's and beyond. Volume 4 contains papers related to the following subject areas: manipulator control; telemanipulation; flight experiments (systems and simulators); sensor-based planning; robot kinematics, dynamics, and control; robot task planning and assembly; and research activities at the NASA Langley Research Center

Model-Augmented Haptic Telemanipulation: Concept, Retrospective Overview, and Current Use Cases

Certain telerobotic applications, including telerobotics in space, pose particularly demanding challenges to both technology and humans. Traditional bilateral telemanipulation approaches often cannot be used in such applications due to technical and physical limitations such as long and varying delays, packet loss, and limited bandwidth, as well as high reliability, precision, and task duration requirements. In order to close this gap, we research model-augmented haptic telemanipulation (MATM) that uses two kinds of models: a remote model that enables shared autonomous functionality of the teleoperated robot, and a local model that aims to generate assistive augmented haptic feedback for the human operator. Several technological methods that form the backbone of the MATM approach have already been successfully demonstrated in accomplished telerobotic space missions. On this basis, we have applied our approach in more recent research to applications in the fields of orbital robotics, telesurgery, caregiving, and telenavigation. In the course of this work, we have advanced specific aspects of the approach that were of particular importance for each respective application, especially shared autonomy, and haptic augmentation. This overview paper discusses the MATM approach in detail, presents the latest research results of the various technologies encompassed within this approach, provides a retrospective of DLR's telerobotic space missions, demonstrates the broad application potential of MATM based on the aforementioned use cases, and outlines lessons learned and open challenges

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 3

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research