NASA Is Making New Robots That Can Control Themselves (vice.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: NASA wants humans and robots to work together as teams. To ensure that, the space agency's autonomous robotics group is currently developing new technology to improve how humans explore the solar system, and how robots can help. When NASA began working with remotely operated robots several years ago, Fong said the scientists needed a piece of software that would allow them to look at terrain and sensor data coming from autonomous robots. That led to the creation of VERVE, a "3D robot user interface," which allows scientists to see and grasp the three-dimensional world of remotely operated robots. VERVE has been used with NASA's K10 planetary rovers (a prototype mobile robot that can travel bumpy terrain), with its K-Rex planetary rovers (robot to determine soil moisture), with SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites) on the International Space Station (ISS), and with the new robot Astrobee (a robot that can fly around the ISS). In 2013, NASA carried out a series of tests with astronauts on the ISS, during which astronauts who were flying 200 miles above Earth remotely operated the K10 planetary rover in California. Because of time delay, astronauts can't just "joystick a robot," said Maria Bualat, deputy lead of intelligent robotics group at the NASA Ames Research Center. "You need a robot that can operate on its own, complete tasks on its own," she said. "On the other hand, you still want the human in the loop, because the human brings a lot of experience and very powerful cognitive ability that can deal with issues that the autonomy's not quite ready to handle." That's why, according to NASA, human capabilities and robotic capabilities comprise a powerful combination.
Re: Robots that don't shit everywhere (Score:2, Interesting)
But then what is going to lick your dick?
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Well, when it comes to space budgets....
NASA: $19,3B
ESA: $5,8B
Roscosmos: ~$2B/yr
JAXA: $2,0B
CNSA: $0,5B official / $1,3B est.
ISRO: $1,2B
It's not just US bias that leads to most stories coming from NASA. NASA really does spend the most on space research and exploration, by large margins.
Still, the public perception is that NASA's budget is far more than it actually is.
Budget perceptions (Score:2)
Still, the public perception is that NASA's budget is far more than it actually is.
True. And yet ironically much of the public thinks we don't spend enough on our military despite it accounting for close to a quarter of the national budget and is . $597B in 2015 alone which is more than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, UK, India and Germany COMBINED. Interestingly the US military budget is very close to the same amount as our annual deficit which also is right around $600B. So we are borrowing the entire US military budget every year and forcing future generations to pay for it.
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What I find funny is how little attention JAXA gets. You almost never hear about them, even though they're continuously launching payloads, satellites, probes, etc. Russia, China and to a lesser extent India get far more headlines.
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so true, and me without mod points *sigh*
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I'm sure other places like china or Russia or Europe are also doing big great and interesting things, I t would Be nice if we had a few stories from them as well...
Not to put too fine a point on the obvious, but it would be nice if other countries allowed free speech too.
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You think your country is the only one ? Russia and China are terrible at it, I'll grant you, but Japan has strong free speech protections (in some ways stronger than American), Europe is a continent - not a country but almost all the countries in it have very strong free speech protections.
Same goes for most countries in Africa and South America, for Australia and New Zeeland... now granted, there isn't a lot of space news coming out of Africa but it's not zero either - the the largest radio-satelite netw
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Our free speech started being eroded when we weren't allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Though I believe I heard that had been overturned.
Anti-sedition laws are also an attack on free speech. If we can't call for the assassination and decoronation of people we don't approve of, do we really have free speech?
This is definitely important (Score:3)
When they're heading out to explore the far reaches of the solar system, it's vital that any robot passengers be able to control themselves during the long trip because if they can't control themselves NASA WILL TURN THIS ROCKET AROUND RIGHT NOW!
Just how autonomous will they make these things? (Score:2)
seriously? (Score:2)
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The Mars rovers already have a degree of automated navigation. They can avoid rocks and dodgy terrain on their own. They are set to stop and report a problem if they have to deviate too much from the draft path or encounter excessive obstacles.
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autonomous (Score:1)
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Would HAL even qualify as a robot? I suppose you could view the ship as his "body", but it always seemed to be more of a computer than a robot, though the distinction isn't a very large one.
Asimov's catch that rabbit (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_That_Rabbit
The recurring team of Powell and Donovan are testing a new model of robot on an asteroid mining station. This model has six subsidiary robots, described as "fingers", which it controls via positronic fields, a means of transmission not yet fully understood by roboticists. When the humans are not in contact, the robot stops producing ore. It cannot recall the time periods when it stops mining, and states that it finds this just as puzzling as the humans do.
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Sounds interesting, will add to reading list. Thanks!
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If you are going to look into it, you might as well get the whole book. This story is in the I, Robot book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It is a collection of stories that explore the edge cases of the Three Laws of Robotics, and limitations of the robots in his science fiction writings.
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The specific issue that Maritz brings up is part of the divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The Shiites are analogious with the Catholics, in that they use iconography (pictures, statues, etc) of important people in the religion, while the Sunni are like the Protestants who believe that having iconography is idol worship and is abhorrent. It is the same argument that birthed the IRA, and it is the same argument that infects the Muslim world now. The Sunnis believe that they are called to bring their
It can control itself? (Score:1)
Hyperbole (Score:1)
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"remotely operated robots" are NOT robots any more than one of those remotely controlled model airplanes is a robot.
Real robots are programmed to control themselves and do NOT require a human to operate them.
Read some of the works by Isaac Asimov for an education.
Didn't read the TFA, but I have to guess this is a form of "fly by wire" where, for example, you might tell the robot where to go but not how to dodge obstacles. In other words, somewhere between a fully manually controlled RC plane and a scifi robot.
Wow (Score:1)
Wow, someone really wanted that thing to be named "SPHERES".
Mars Exploration (Score:2)
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How does the human lifespan figure into the difficulties of traveling to Mars? We aren't talking Pluto here, Mars is only 8.5 months away from Earth using a Hohmann Transfer Ellipse.
http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/S... [phy6.org]
What a relief (Score:2)
We need humans like that (Score:2)
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I came here to say just this. Thanks for saving me some typing, or not. I agree, in any case. Can humans who literally cannot control themselves design robots that can? Sure people who meditate a lot can control themselves a lot but most of us can't. This lack of control is baked into us as part of being human so maybe all we need to do is take normal humans and remove the part that makes us humans and we end up with the desired robots, or we could just clone off some CEOs (they are known to lack all h
They solved the maze. (Score:2)
Robots (Score:1)