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NASA NTRS2011

Robonaut 2 - Initial Activities On-Board the ISS

Robonaut 2, or R2, arrived on the International Space Station in February 2011 and is currently undergoing testing in preparation for it to become, initially, an Intra-Vehicular Activity (IVA) tool and then evolve into a system that can perform Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVA). After the completion of a series of system level checks to ensure that the robot traveled well on-board the Space Shuttle Atlantis, ground control personnel will remotely control the robot to perform free space tasks that will help characterize the differences between earth and zero-g control. For approximately one year, the fixed base R2 will perform a variety of experiments using a reconfigurable task board that was launched with the robot. While working side-by-side with human astronauts, Robonaut 2 will actuate switches, use standard tools, and manipulate Space Station interfaces, soft goods and cables. The results of these experiments will demonstrate the wide range of tasks a dexterous humanoid can perform in space and they will help refine the methodologies used to control dexterous robots both in space and here on earth. After the trial period that will evaluate R2 while on a fixed stanchion in the US Laboratory module, NASA plans to launch climbing legs that when attached to the current on-orbit R2 upper body will give the robot the ability to traverse through the Space Station and start assisting crew with general IVA maintenance activities. Multiple control modes will be evaluated in this extra-ordinary ISS test environment to prepare the robot for use during EVAs. Ground Controllers will remotely supervise the robot as it executes semi-autonomous scripts for climbing through the Space Station and interacting with IVA interfaces. IVA crew will locally supervise the robot using the same scripts and also teleoperate the robot to simulate scenarios with the robot working alone or as an assistant during space walks.

Diftler, M. A.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Autonomous Diagnostic Imaging Performed by Untrained Operators using Augmented Reality as a Form of "Just-in-Time" Training

We will address the Human Factors and Performance Team, "Risk of performance errors due to training deficiencies" by improving the JIT training materials for ultrasound and OCT imaging by providing advanced guidance in a detailed, timely, and user-friendly manner. Specifically, we will (1) develop an audio-visual tutorial using AR that guides non-experts through an abdominal trauma ultrasound protocol; (2) develop an audio-visual tutorial using AR to guide an untrained operator through the acquisition of OCT images; (3) evaluate the quality of abdominal ultrasound and OCT images acquired by untrained operators using AR guidance compared to images acquired using traditional JIT techniques (laptop-based training conducted before image acquisition); and (4) compare the time required to complete imaging studies using AR tutorials with images acquired using current JIT practices to identify areas for time efficiency improvements. Two groups of subjects will be recruited to participate in this study. Operator-subjects, without previous experience in ultrasound or OCT, will be asked to perform both procedures using either the JIT training with AR technology or the traditional JIT training via laptop. Images acquired by inexperienced operator-subjects will be scored by experts in that imaging modality for diagnostic and research quality; experts will be blinded to the form of JIT used to acquire the images. Operator-subjects also will be asked to submit feedback to improve the training modules used during the scans to improve future training modules. Scanned-subjects will be a small group individuals from whom all images will be acquired.

Martin, D. S.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Autonomous Diagnostic Imaging Performed by Untrained Operator Using Augmented Reality as a Form of "Just-in-Time" Training

Martin, David S.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Technology Advancement for Active Remote Sensing of Carbon Dioxide from Space Using the ASCENDS CarbonHawk Experiment Simulator: First Results

The ASCENDS CarbonHawk Experiment Simulator (ACES) is a newly developed lidar developed at NASA Langley Research Center and funded by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) that seeks to advance technologies critical to measuring atmospheric column carbon dioxide (CO2) mixing ratios in support of the NASA Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) mission. The technology advancements targeted include: (1) increasing the power-aperture product to approach ASCENDS mission requirements by implementing multi-aperture telescopes and multiple co-aligned laser transmitters; (2) incorporating high-efficiency, high-power Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs); (3) developing and incorporating a high-bandwidth, low-noise HgCdTe detector and transimpedence amplifier (TIA) subsystem capable of long-duration autonomous operation on Global Hawk aircraft, and (4) advancing algorithms for cloud and aerosol discrimination. The ACES instrument architecture is being developed for operation on high-altitude aircraft and will be directly scalable to meet the ASCENDS mission requirements. These technologies are critical towards developing not only spaceborne instruments but also their airborne simulators, with lower platform requirements for size, mass, and power, and with improved instrument performance for the ASCENDS mission. ACES transmits five laser beams: three from commercial EDFAs operating near 1.57 microns, and two from the Exelis oxygen (O2) Raman fiber laser amplifier system operating near 1.26 microns. The three EDFAs are capable of transmitting up to 10 watts average optical output power each and are seeded by compact, low noise, stable, narrow-linewidth laser sources stabilized with respect to a CO2 absorption line using a multi-pass gas absorption cell. The Integrated-Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar approach is used at both wavelengths to independently measure the CO2 and O2 column number densities and retrieve the average column CO2 mixing ratio. The ACES receiver uses three fiber-coupled 17.8-cm diameter athermal telescopes. The transmitter assembly consists of five fiber-coupled laser collimators and an associated Risley prism pair for each laser to co-align the outgoing laser beams and to align them with the telescope field of view. The backscattered return signals collected by the three telescopes are combined in a fiber bundle and sent to a single low noise detector. The detector/TIA development has improved the existing detector subsystem by increasing its bandwidth to 4.7 MHz from 500 kHz and increasing the duration of autonomous, service-free operation periods from 4 hours to >24 hours. The new detector subsystem enables the utilization of higher laser modulation rates, which provides greater flexibility for implementing advanced thin-cloud discrimination algorithms as well as improving range-determination resolution and error reduction. The cloud/aerosol discrimination algorithm development by Langley and Exelis features a new suite of algorithms for the minimization/elimination of bias errors in the return signal induced by the presence of intervening thin clouds. Multiple laser modulation schemes are being tested in an effort to significantly mitigate the effects of thin clouds on the retrieved CO2 column amounts. Full instrument development concluded in the spring of 2014. After ground range tests of the instrument, ACES successfully completed six test flights on the Langley Hu-25 aircraft in July, 2014, and recorded data at multiple altitudes over land and ocean surfaces with and without intervening clouds. Preliminary results from these test flights will be presented in this paper.

Obland, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Evolution of telemedicine in the space program and earth applications

Remote monitoring of crew, spacecraft, and environmental health has always been an integral part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) operations. Crew safety and mission success face a number of challenges in outerspace, including physiological adaptations to microgravity, radiation exposure, extreme temperatures and vacuum, and psychosocial reactions to space flight. The NASA effort to monitor and maintain crew health, system performance, and environmental integrity in space flight is a sophisticated and coordinated program of telemedicine combining cutting-edge engineering with medical expertise. As missions have increased in complexity, NASA telemedicine capabilities have grown apace, underlying its role in the field. At the same time, the terrestrial validation of telemedicine technologies to bring healthcare to remote locations provides feedback, improvement, and enhancement of the space program. As NASA progresses in its space exploration program, astronauts will join missions lasting months, even years, that take them millions of miles from home. These long-duration missions necessitate further technological breakthroughs in tele-operations and autonomous technology. Earth-based monitoring will no longer be real-time, requiring telemedicine capabilities to advance with future explorers as they travel deeper into space. The International Space Station will serve as a testbed for the telemedicine technologies to enable future missions as well as improve the quality of healthcare delivery on Earth.

long duration↗

NASA NTRS2018

SORCE Daylight-Only Operations

The recent experience of the SORCE flight operations team offers an excellent example of innovative engineering using limited resources. The goal of this paper is to extend to the space operations community the lessons learned during this critical redesign in order to aid other missions facing equally daunting challenges. The end result is a mission extended well beyond its designed life continuing to return important data to the science community to extend the climate record.

Spacecraft Anomaly Recovery↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Adaptive Optimization for System Performance and Combined Bernstein Polynomial, Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance, Differential Dynamic Programming for Trajectory Replanning and Collision Avoidance for UAM Vehicles

The emerging urban air mobility (UAM) sector in aerospace is driving development of unconventional multi-modal vehicle configurations and autonomous flight. The combination of multi-modal vehicle dynamics, complex environment, requirements to deal with flight contingencies in an efficient and safe manner, as well as necessity for precise trajectory following and performance, are the driving influence behind adaptive optimization for system performance. We are interested in trajectory optimization algorithm that would system parameter estimation and identifying the optimal switching time between modes of hybrid dynamical systems. This presentation discusses a parameterized optimal control trajectory optimization algorithm that is an extended and generalized version of Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP), titled Parameterized Differential Dynamic Programming (PDDP). DDP is an efficient trajectory optimization algorithm relying on second order approximations of a system’s dynamics and cost function and has recently been applied to optimize systems with time invariant parameters. Experiments are presented applying PDDP to solve model predictive control (MPC) and moving horizon estimation (MHE) tasks simultaneously. In particular, PDDP is used to determine the optimal transition point between flight regimes of a complex urban air mobility (UAM) class vehicle exhibiting multiple phases of flight and to identify and compensate for actuation faults.

optimization↗

NASA NTRS1992

Polarization Lidar Liquid Cloud Detection Algorithm for Winter Mountain Storms

We have collected an extensive polarization lidar dataset from elevated sites in the Tushar Mountains of Utah in support of winter storm cloud seeding research and experiments. Our truck-mounted ruby lidar collected zenith, dual-polarization lidar data through a roof window equipped with a wiper system to prevent snowfall accumulation. Lidar returns were collected at a rate of one shot every 1 to 5 min during declared storm periods over the 1985 and 1987 mid-Jan. to mid-Mar. Field seasons. The mid-barrier remote sensor field site was located at 2.57 km MSL. Of chief interest to weather modification efforts are the heights of supercooled liquid water (SLW) clouds, which must be known to assess their 'seedability' (i.e., temperature and height suitability for artificially increasing snowfall). We are currently re-examining out entire dataset to determine the climatological properties of SLW clouds in winter storms using an autonomous computer algorithm.

Sassen, Kenneth↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Oculometric Standard to Assess the Performance of the Ocular System for Long Duration Spaceflight

Changes in the human brain, due to spaceflight, have been a challenge to the space program since its inception; a challenge that is becoming more acute as extended International Space Station (ISS) missions become routine, a return to crewed lunar exploration is about to begin, and a multi-year crewed trip to Mars is being planned. Determining the extent to which neurophysiological adaptations may adversely impact performance in operational tasks, assessing the full-time course of these changes, and identifying/mitigating any potential long-term health consequences are crucial steps required to enable safe crew-autonomous, long-duration, deep-space missions. Vision is the predominant perceptual sense used to guide cognition and motor control in humans. Thus, it is critical for the success of any future, long-duration mission to understand how long-term exposure to microgravity and to other stressors of spaceflight and their interactions, impact visual function. This is an especially challenging task given the small and disparate samples from which we have been and will be able to collect human performance data. NASA has recently been carefully tracking spaceflight-induced ophthalmic changes, driven in large part by the fluid shifts related to microgravity. In particular, a recent study of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) postflight measures revealed that more than two-thirds of US crew members experience significant increases in retinal thickness after 6month or longer ISS missions. Space Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS) also includes visual acuity decrements and other ocular structural changes that could adversely impact in-flight performance as missions become longer. However, the impact of spaceflight on the visual system is not limited to the retina. Recent comparisons of pre-and post-flight brain images have revealed structural changes throughout the brain that implicate visual, visuomotor, and visual-cognitive pathways, consistent with observed functional impacts (e.g., decreased speed/accuracy/timing of fine goal-oriented movements). Current limitations on inflight testing make it very difficult to determine when and under what conditions SANS and other disruptions of human neurological subsystems arise. Currently, one cannot anticipate the time course and extent of impairment and recovery. This study addresses this knowledge gap by creating an integrated framework of the relevant existing literature on visual and oculomotor function during spaceflight with an eye towards complementing current structural measures of visuomotor impairment with new oculometric standard measures. Using eye-movement based visual function assessment and diagnostics would provide a valuable enhancement of crew health and performance monitoring in support of deepspace exploration.

Vision↗

NASA NTRS2000

The Deep Space 1 and Space Technology 4/Champollion Missions

NASA's New Millennium Program (NMP) is designed to develop, test, and flight validate new, advanced technologies for planetary and Earth exploration missions, using a series of low cost spacecraft. Two of NMP's current missions include encounters with comets and asteroids. The Deep Space 1 mission was launched on October 24, 1998 and will fly by asteroid 1992 KD on July 29, 1999, and possibly Comet Wilson-Harrington and/or Comet Borrelly in 2001. The Space Technology 4/Champollion mission will be launched in April, 2003 and will rendezvous with, orbit and land on periodic Comet Tempel 1 in 2006. ST-4/Champollion is a joint project with CNES, the French space agency. The DS-1 mission is going well since launch and has already validated several major technologies, including solar electric propulsion (SEP), solar concentrator arrays, a small deep space transponder, and autonomous navigation. The spacecraft carries two scientific instruments: MICAS, a combined visible camera and UV and IR spectrometers, and PEPE, an ion and electron spectrometer. Testing of the science instruments is ongoing. Following the asteroid encounter in July, 1999, DS-1 will go on to encounters with one or both comets if NASA approves funding for an extended mission. The ST-4/Champollion mission will use an advanced, multi-engine SEP system to effect a rendezvous with Comet P/Tempel 1 in February, 2006, after a flight time of 2.8 years. After orbiting the comet for several months in order to map its surface and determine its gravity field, ST-4/Champollion will descend to the comet's surface and will anchor itself with a 3-meter long harpoon. Scientific experiments include narrow and wide angle cameras for orbital mapping, panoramic and near-field cameras for landing site mapping, a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, a combined microscope and infrared spectrometer, and physical properties probes. Cometary samples will be obtained from depths up to 1.4 meters. The spacecraft is solar powered with rechargeable batteries, thus allowing a long duration mission on the nucleus surface. At the time of this writing, the ST-4/Champollion spacecraft was undergoing a major redesign to fit within NASA cost constraints, and approval of the mission is pending.

Weissman, Paul R.↗

NASA NTRS2000

The Video Guidance Sensor: Space, Earth, Ground, and Sea

Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) have been developing and testing video-based sensors for automated spacecraft guidance for several years. The next generation of Video Guidance Sensor (VGS) is being designed to be faster and more capable than ever. It will have applications to relative position measurement in any field of endeavor. The system works by sequentially firing two different wavelengths of laser diodes at the target (which has retroreflectors) and processing the two images. Since the target only reflects one wavelength, it shows up well in one image and not at all in the other. Because the target's dimensions are known, the relative positions and attitudes of the target and the sensor can be computed from the spots reflected from the target. The current sensor operates at 5 Hz at ranges from 1 to 110 meters with a 20 deg. field-of-view. The Video Guidance Sensor (VGS) developed over the past several years has performed well in testing and met the objective of being used as the terminal guidance sensor for an automated rendezvous and capture system. The first VGS was successfully tested in closed-loop 3-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) tests in 1989 and then in 6-DOF open-loop tests in 1992 and closed-loop tests in 1993-4. Development and testing continued, and in 1995 approval was given to test the VGS in an experiment on the Space Shuttle. The VGS flew in 1997 and in 1998, performing well during both flight experiments. During the development and testing before, during, and after the flight experiments, numerous areas for improvement were found. The next generation of VGS is being designed to operate at up to 100 Hz tracking rates and at ranges from 0.5 to 200 meters. In addition to its use as a spacecraft guidance sensor, it could be used as an alignment aid for an operator of a remote system (giving position and attitude feedback data), as a feedback system for a robotic arm, or for automated vehicle guidance. The next generation VGS, with its higher tracking rates, smaller size, and lower power could be used in more places than the original VGS, and by using LED's instead of laser diodes, the system would be eye-safe at any range. More potential applications include aerial station keeping (keeping 2 or more autonomous aircraft within particular relative positions), under-water robotics, and the guidance of ground vehicles in predefined areas equipped with sets of targets.

Howard, Richard T.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Comet and Asteroid Missions in NASA's New Millennium Program

NASA's New Millennium Program (NMP) is designed to develop, test, and flight validate new, advanced technologies for planetary and Earth exploration missions, using a series of low cost spacecraft. Two of NMP's current missions include encounters with comets and asteroids. The Deep Space 1 mission was launched on October 24, 1998 and will fly by asteroid 1992 KD on July 29, 1999, and possibly Comet Wilson-Harrington and/or Comet Borrelly in 2001. The Space Technology 4/Champollion mission will be launched in April, 2003 and will rendezvous with, orbit and land on periodic Comet Tempel 1 in 2006. ST-4/Champollion is a joint project with CNES, the French space agency. The DS-1 mission is going well since launch and has already validated several major technologies, including solar electric propulsion (SEP), solar concentrator arrays, a small deep space transponder, and autonomous navigation. The spacecraft carries two scientific instruments: MICAS, a combined visible camera and UV and IR spectrometers, and PEPE, an ion and electron spectrometer. Testing of the science instruments is ongoing. Following the asteroid encounter in July, 1999, DS-1 will go on to encounters with one or both comets if NASA approves funding for an extended mission. The ST-4/Champollion mission will use an advanced, multi-engine SEP system to effect a rendezvous with Comet P/Tempel 1 in February, 2006, after a flight time of 2.8 years. After orbiting the comet for several months in order to map its surface and determine its gravity field, ST-4/Chainpollion will descend to the comet's surface and will anchor itself with a 3-meter long harpoon. Scientific experiments include narrow and wide angle cameras for orbital mapping, panoramic and near-field cameras for landing site mapping, a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, a combined microscope and infrared spectrometer, and physical properties probes. Cometary samples will be obtained from depths up to 1.4 meters. The spacecraft is solar powered with rechargeable batteries, thus allowing a long duration mission on the nucleus surface. At the time of this writing, the ST-4/Champollion spacecraft was undergoing a major redesign to fit within NASA cost constraints, and approval of the mission is pending.

Weissman, Paul R.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Sensor-Based Collision Avoidance: Theory and Experiments

A new on-line control strategy for sensor-based collision avoidance of manipulators and supporting experimental results are presented in this article. This control strategy is based on nullification of virtual forces applied to the end-effector by a hypothetical spring-plus-damper attached to the object's surface. In the proposed approach, the real-time arm control software continuously monitors the object distance measured by the arm-mounted proximity sensors. When this distance is less than a preset threshold, the collision avoidance control action is initiated to inhibit motion toward the object and thus prevent collision. This is accomplished by employing an outer feedback loop to perturb the end-effector nominal motion trajectory in real-time based on the sensory data. The perturbation is generated by a proportional-plus-integral (PI) collision avoidance controller acting on the difference between the sensed distance and the preset threshold. This approach is computationally very fast, requires minimal modification to the existing manipulator positioning system, and provides the manipulator with an on-line collision avoidance capability to react autonomously and intelligently. A dexterous RRC robotic arm is instrumented with infrared proximity sensors and is operated under the proposed collision avoidance strategy. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate end-effector collision avoidance both with an approaching object and while reaching inside a constricted opening.

Seraji, Homayoun↗

NASA NTRS2017

Autonomous Acquisition of Science Quality Spectra from Unmanned Aerial Systems

This is a presentation on a technique for using Unmanned Aerial Systems with intelligent sensing to create science quality data. In this particular case, the team used two spectrometers with high spectral resolution and developed a technique to have the spectrometers self calibrate so that it is possible to take the measurements within the allocated 10 minute flight times. Because there is both upwelling and downwelling foreoptics on each of the two spectrometers, it becomes slow to set the calibration up for all four possibilities which relates to the integration time and then take the measurements. If light conditions change too rapidly then the measurements won't be scaled so that the spectra max is at least 85% of the instrument max but not saturated. This process was more difficult then it appeared due to the complexity of determining the integration time before light conditions changed and before the battery runs our of charge to fly the Unmanned Aerial System. This presentation goes over the results for the first few flight days and the planned future flight experiments.

Mandl, Daniel↗

NASA NTRS2006

NASA Tech Briefs, March 2006

Topics covered include: Medical Signal-Conditioning and Data-Interface System; Instruments for Reading Direct-Marked Data-Matrix Symbols; Processing EOS MLS Level-2 Data; Ground Processing of Data From the Mars Exploration Rovers; Estimating Total Electron Content Using 1,000+ GPS Receivers; NASA Solar Array Demonstrates Commercial Potential; Improved Control of Charging Voltage for Li-Ion Battery; Programmable Pulse-Position-Modulation Encoder; Wavelength-Agile External-Cavity Diode Laser for DWDM; Pattern-Recognition Processor Using Holographic Photopolymer; Submicrosecond Power-Switching Test Circuit; Three-Function Logic Gate Controlled by Analog Voltage; Integrated System for Autonomous Science; Montage Version 3.0; Utilizing AI in Temporal, Spatial, and Resource Scheduling; Satellite Image Mosaic Engine; Architecture for Control of the K9 Rover; HFGMC Enhancement of MAC/GMC; Automated Activation and Deactivation of a System Under Test; Cleaning Carbon Nanotubes by Use of Mild Oxygen Plasmas; Generating Aromatics From CO2 on Mars or Natural Gas on Earth; Attaching Thermocouples by Peening or Crimping; Heat Treatment of Friction-Stir-Welded 7050 Aluminum Plates; Generating Breathable Air Through Dissociation of N2O; High-Performance Scanning Acousto-Ultrasonic System; Correction for Thermal EMFs in Thermocouple Feedthroughs; Using Quasiparticle Poisoning To Detect Photons; Estimating Resolution Lengths of Hybrid Turbulence Models; Education and Training Module in Alertness Management; Cargo-Positioning System for Next-Generation Spacecraft; Micro-Imagers for Spaceborne Cell-Growth Experiments; Holographic Solar Photon Thrusters; Plasma-Based Detector of Outer-Space Dust Particles; and Generation of Data-Rate Profiles of Ka-Band Deep-Space Links.

Source record↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Flight Replanning Tool for Terminal Area Urban Air Mobility Operations

In this presentation we describe and evaluate a flight replanning tool, called the trial planner, for terminal area air transport applications. The trial planner employs predefined airspace structures to generate rerouting options between vertiports. In a simplified definition, vertiports are facilities that provide services for managing the take-off and landing of autonomous or manned electric vertical take-off or landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The airspace structures involved in our test cases are arrival routes that consist of predefined entry points to which a transitional path is computed dynamically from the current position of the aircraft. Rerouting options include the transitional path and approach segment along the arrival route; these rerouting options are not vetted for potential conflicts with other operations until a human operator commits to a choice and forwards the flight plan modification for approval from an automated airspace management service. A selected rerouting option is executed by loading a flight plan file to the aircraft ground control station. We conducted a qualitative evaluation of the trial planner using ratings provided by flight crews and air transportation human factors experts with relevant experience from air traffic control. Evaluation criteria included trust in the route recommendations and adequate explanation for the route options. We detail the logic and implementation of the trial planner, as well as report the results of the evaluation of the implementation herein.

Trial planning↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Astrobee: Completed, Current, and Future Research using Free Flying Robots on the International Space Station

After four years on the International Space Station (ISS), the Astrobee Research Facility, has completed over 130 Test Sessions logging over 1000 hours of operations. Managed by the NASA ISS Program OZ office and supported by NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) in California, the Astrobee Team maintains three identical free-flying Astrobee robots for research on the ISS. As a technology demonstration platform, the Astrobee Robots are available for Guest Scientists to use for a spectrum of research capabilities. Astrobee, propelled by battery-operated fans, is designed to autonomously operate throughout most of the USOS (US Orbital Segment), with the objective of minimizing astronaut support. Astrobee carries a suite of six cameras, a two degree-of-freedom (DOF) arm with a gripper that can grasp ISS handrails and other objects, and three payload bays that provide power and data for guest science hardware. Astrobee can autonomously execute hours-long flight plans or be teleoperated from the ground or by astronauts. While the Astrobee Team continues to improve mapping and autonomous flight capabilities, one of the main goals of Astrobee Robots is to provide research opportunities for Guest Scientists. The Astrobee Robot Software (ARS) makes extensive use of the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS). The ARS can be used interchangeably with an Astrobee Simulator or as Astrobee’s onboard software. ARS features include autonomous docking and perching, real-time teleoperations from the ground, plan based autonomous tasks, multi Astrobee communication, among other capabilities. Through simulation software and ground testing laboratories, the Astrobee Team is available to support Guest Scientists during development and testing and lead real-time ISS operations. Guest Scientists can participate in this research opportunity following the Guest Science Lifecycle (GSL) shown in Figure 1: Guest Science Lifecycle below. The Astrobee Team and Guest Scientists have complete research including Gecko materials studies, RFID and sound sensing capabilities, student Robotics Programming Challenges, and Free Flyer formation flight investigations. Current science with the Astrobee Robots includes Free Flyer self-toss studies, new docking capabilities, advanced mapping resolution capabilities, and high resolution panoramic imagery. Future Guest scientists and Astrobee Team research will focus on robotics applications for future NASA missions such as Gateway and Artemis and potential experiments involving human-robot interactions. This presentation will focus on four main subjects, 1) completed, current, and future planned research using the Astrobee robots, 2) how Guest Scientist get from conception to the ISS, 3) Astrobee Facility resources available for Guest Science ground testing and real-time ISS operations support, and 4) lessons learned from four years of ISS operations.

Astrobee↗

NASA NTRS1993

Multi-beam range imager for autonomous operations

For space operations from the Space Station Freedom the real time range imager will be very valuable in terms of refuelling, docking as well as space exploration operations. For these applications as well as many other robotics and remote ranging applications, a small potable, power efficient, robust range imager capable of a few tens of km ranging with 10 cm accuracy is needed. The system developed is based on a well known pseudo-random modulation technique applied to a laser transmitter combined with a novel range resolution enhancement technique. In this technique, the transmitter is modulated by a relatively low frequency of an order of a few MHz to enhance the signal to noise ratio and to ease the stringent systems engineering requirements while accomplishing a very high resolution. The desired resolution cannot easily be attained by other conventional approaches. The engineering model of the system is being designed to obtain better than 10 cm range accuracy simply by implementing a high precision clock circuit. In this paper we present the principle of the pseudo-random noise (PN) lidar system and the results of the proof of experiment.

Marzwell, Neville I.↗