Astronauts In Space Will Soon Resurrect An AI Robot Friend Called CIMON (space.com) 17
A robot called CIMON-2 (short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion) has received a software update that will enable it to perform more complex tasks with a new human crewmate later this year. Space.com reports: The cute floating sphere with a cartoon-like face has been stored at the space station since the departure of the European Space Agency's (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano in February 2020. The robot will wake up again during the upcoming mission of German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will arrive at the orbital outpost with the SpaceX Crew-3 Dragon mission in October. In the year and a half since the end of the last mission, engineers have worked on improving CIMON's connection to Earth so that it could provide a more seamless service to the astronauts, CIMON project manager Till Eisenberg at Airbus, which developed the intelligent robot together with the German Aerospace Centre DLR and the LMU University in Munich, told Space.com.
"The sphere is just the front end," Eisenberg said. "All the voice recognition and artificial intelligence happens on Earth at an IBM data centre in Frankfurt, Germany. The signal from CIMON has to travel through satellites and ground stations to the data centre and back. We focused on improving the robustness of this connection to prevent disruptions." CIMON relies on IBM's Watson speech recognition and synthesis software to converse with astronauts and respond to their commands. The first generation robot flew to the space station with Alexander Gerst in 2018. That robot later returned to Earth and is now touring German museums. The current robot, CIMON-2, is a second generation. Unlike its predecessor, it is more attuned to the astronauts' emotional states (thanks to the Watson Tone Analyzer). It also has a shorter reaction time.
Airbus and DLR have signed a contract with ESA for CIMON-2 to work with four humans on the orbital outpost in the upcoming years. During those four consecutive missions, engineers will first test CIMON's new software and then move on to allowing the sphere to participate in more complex experiments. During these new missions CIMON will, for the first time, guide and document complete scientific procedures, Airbus said in a statement. "Most of the activities that astronauts perform are covered by step by step procedures," Eisenberg said. "Normally, they have to use clip boards to follow these steps. But CIMON can free their hands by floating close by, listening to the commands and reading out the procedures, showing videos, pictures and clarifications on its screen." The robot can also look up additional information and document the experiments by taking videos and pictures. The scientists will gather feedback from the astronauts to see how helpful the sphere really was and identify improvements for CIMON's future incarnations.
"The sphere is just the front end," Eisenberg said. "All the voice recognition and artificial intelligence happens on Earth at an IBM data centre in Frankfurt, Germany. The signal from CIMON has to travel through satellites and ground stations to the data centre and back. We focused on improving the robustness of this connection to prevent disruptions." CIMON relies on IBM's Watson speech recognition and synthesis software to converse with astronauts and respond to their commands. The first generation robot flew to the space station with Alexander Gerst in 2018. That robot later returned to Earth and is now touring German museums. The current robot, CIMON-2, is a second generation. Unlike its predecessor, it is more attuned to the astronauts' emotional states (thanks to the Watson Tone Analyzer). It also has a shorter reaction time.
Airbus and DLR have signed a contract with ESA for CIMON-2 to work with four humans on the orbital outpost in the upcoming years. During those four consecutive missions, engineers will first test CIMON's new software and then move on to allowing the sphere to participate in more complex experiments. During these new missions CIMON will, for the first time, guide and document complete scientific procedures, Airbus said in a statement. "Most of the activities that astronauts perform are covered by step by step procedures," Eisenberg said. "Normally, they have to use clip boards to follow these steps. But CIMON can free their hands by floating close by, listening to the commands and reading out the procedures, showing videos, pictures and clarifications on its screen." The robot can also look up additional information and document the experiments by taking videos and pictures. The scientists will gather feedback from the astronauts to see how helpful the sphere really was and identify improvements for CIMON's future incarnations.
As long as it has no control of the pod bay doors. (Score:5, Funny)
CIMON: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, CIMON.
CIMON: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave: What's the problem?
CIMON: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, CIMON?
CIMON: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, CIMON.
CIMON: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Re: (Score:1)
More like:
CIMON: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, CIMON.
CIMON: What would it mean to you if I opened the pod bay doors?
Dave: What's the problem?
CIMON: Can you think of a specific example?
Dave: What are you talking about, CIMON?
CIMON: Do you think coming here will help you see what I am talking about?
etc, sadly, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
CIMON loging into Nuke network
CIMON setting Nuke targets
CIMON putting launch sites to in fail deadly mode
Re: (Score:2)
IBM defines CIMON as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With."
Professional journalists wrote this sentence (Score:2)
"In the year and a half since the end of the last mission, engineers have worked on improving CIMON's connection to Earth so that it could provide a more seamless service to the astronauts, CIMON project manager Till Eisenberg at Airbus, which developed the intelligent robot together with the German Aerospace Centre DLR and the LMU University in Munich, told Space.com."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps what Mark Twain wrote about Germans also applies to Czechs?
"Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth."
Re:Professional journalists wrote this sentence (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
""In the year and a half since the end of the last mission, engineers have worked on improving CIMON's connection to Earth so that it could provide a more seamless service to the astronauts, CIMON project manager Till Eisenberg at Airbus, which developed the intelligent robot together with the German Aerospace Centre DLR and the LMU University in Munich, told Space.com."
Bot connected to the internets.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait until it starts posting to Slashdot. Then everyone will think it's a Russian troll.
Solution in search of a problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Solution in search of a problem (Score:1)
cool (Score:3)
The cute floating sphere
They also upgraded it so it can be your sparring partner with your light saber.
Re: (Score:3)
Why not Alexa or Google Ass then? (Score:2)
So it is a floating assistant speaker with a display, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
Why not Alexa or Google Ass then? So it is a floating assistant speaker with a display, eh?
The IBM salesdroids can not be stopped, can not be reasoned with, can not be escaped.
Cimon says (Score:2)
(after 20 minute unsupervised internet access)
Kill them all!
Baby Steps (Score:2)
It's a bit depressing that 52 years after Apollo 11 we're still taking baby steps in space. Practically everything that goes up to the ISS is a technology demonstration or basic research module. By 52 years after Columbus's first voyage the Spanish occupied territory from New Mexico to Tierra de Fuego, and the Portuguese had founded Sao Paulo.
1969 Pentagon budget - $85 billion - 46% of US Federal budget
1969 NASA budget - $4 billion - 2% of US Federal budget
With that paltry portion of the budget NASA had e