Mission to Mars

NASA is developing a humanoid robot which will be deployed ahead of any manned missions to Mars in the future. However, a little more research work is needed before “Valkyrie” will be able to operate autonomously on another planet.

A mission to Mars is one of NASA’s loftiest goals, yet robots are set to do the dangerous groundwork before humans set foot on the Red Planet. “Advances in robotics, including human-robotic collaboration, are critical to developing the capabilities required for our journey to Mars,” says Steve Jurczyk, Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. With this aim in mind, the US space agency has been working for several years to develop the R5, a humanoid robot constructed by the Johnson Space Center. Its design featuring two legs, two arms and a head allows the robot to work alongside humans or perform high-risk tasks in their place.

Versatile Valkyrie

NASA named its model “Valkyrie” after the messenger to the gods in the Norse sagas. The robot is around 180 centimetres tall, weighs 136 kilograms and walks almost like a human does. 28 torque-monitored joints allow it to perform a wide range of movements. Each upper arm alone is equipped with four elastic rotary actuators arranged in series and has seven joints together with the lower arm. One further rotary actuator allows the robot to rotate its wrist, whilst linear actuators control the tilt and yaw angle. A simplified humanoid hand with three fingers and a thumb ­enables it to grip different objects. This means that the R5 can even turn a door handle. Three additional rotary actuators are accommodated in the robot’s pelvis to control movement in its waist and hip joints.

More than 200 sensors

The robot perceives its surroundings using a multi-modal sensor made by the firm Carnegie Robotics: the system collects distance data using a laser scanner and a stereo camera and supplements these with a video image of its surroundings. Further cameras are built into the torso. More than 200 sensors produce additional information; each hand alone is equipped with 38 sensors (six on the palm and eight along each of its four digits). Valkyrie processes this array of data using two Intel Core i7 COM Express processor cores.

Robots don’t always work

A little more development work is still needed before this robot can actually be sent to Mars, however. NASA has therefore tasked three universities – among others – with improving certain functions. As a consequence, work is being carried out on the autonomous functions, environmental perception and movement optimisation at MIT, the University of Edinburgh and Northeastern University in Boston. Sarah Hensley, an MIT student who is working on the elbow control system, understands only too well why this work is necessary. When Valkyrie is turned on and moves, Hensley says, it often “kind of shivers and falls down. Sometimes robots work, and sometimes they don’t. That’s our challenge.”

A million dollars for the winner

NASA therefore wants to hold a competition in order to provide additional incentives for improving Valkyrie. A million dollars are offered to anyone who succeeds in demonstrating that a virtual model of the R5 can repair the damage done to a Mars habitat by a sandstorm in a digital environment. To be specific, it would need to align a satellite dish, repair a solar energy system and patch up a leak in the habitat. The winners will be announced at the end of June 2017. The software developed in this competition should be transfer­able to other robot systems. In this way, the new technology is intended to benefit older robots and future systems alike. “Precise and dexterous robotics which are able to work with a communications delay could be used in space flight and ground missions to Mars and elsewhere for hazardous and complicated tasks, which will be crucial to support our astronauts,” says Monsi Roman, Program Manager of NASA’s Centennial Challenges.

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