| When Humans and Robots Team Up
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
31 August 2000
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WASHINGTON -- In the not too distant future, flesh-and-bone astronaut explorers may meet their match as automatons become increasingly imbued with the robotic "right stuff."
In years to come, NASA robot experts see an increasing need for humans and robots fulfilling assignments in space together. While not prioritized as yet, "a cloud of possible missions are out there," said David Lavery, NASA program executive for solar system exploration.
Working on robotics for some 15 years, Lavery said a main research thrust of NASA is giving an operator the ability to not only see what a robot sees, but to also allow that person to be fully "immersed" in the environment surrounding the robot.
A Robonaut can be controlled from distant locales, such as from within the International Space Station.
The robot operator could basically walk through a robot's paces ahead of time. Then a prioritized sequence of events would be sent to the robot to accomplish its duties in quick order.
A Mars rover, for instance, could speedily work its way to pre-picked rocks or perform other science errands, Lavery said. Time-consuming slow crawls like that done in 1997 by the Sojourner mini-rover would be left in the Martian dust -- a 20th-century relic of how work was done on the Red Planet.
Beyond grasp
Lavery said NASA is developing "force feedback," an ability for a human controller to actually feel the result from a robot's grasp.
"You could feel the texture of a rock, or the pressure from a robot's grasp of a solar array, or removing a panel. The robot, in effect, is the operator's remote hands," he said.
The space agency is already at work on an advanced humanoid system called Robonaut, Lavery said. Robonaut is now under development at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. In appearance, this robot is very similar to a human upper torso.
Robonaut will mimic the motion of human astronauts sitting elsewhere, such as within the pressurized volume of the International Space Station. "It will be equivalent to a human in a spacewalking suit, with a high level of dexterity," Lavery said.
The anthropomorphic robot is the size of an astronaut in a spacesuit and configured with two arms, two five-fingered hands, a head and a torso. Robonaut is not now intended for flight. It could be assigned to the space station, ready for service perhaps by the end of the decade, he said.
While space robotic work is very promising, "we constantly have to calibrate expectations," admitted Lavery. Public images of those classic Star Wars robots, R2D2 and C3PO, shore up expectations such wonders are just around the corner, he said.
"While we understand the mechanics, true intelligence is the real nut yet to crack," Lavery said.
No robots here
The respective roles of robots and humans is shifting, said William Whittaker, leader in robotics research at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
As robots become more capable and competent, the human-machine relationship goes from humans just as operators, to humans as supervisors, then humans as peers, Whittaker said.
"In truth, there has been a historical ‘human-centric' camp and, perhaps, a historic ‘robot-centric' camp. The clear future is an expanding role for each," Whittaker said.
Whittaker said that just a few decades ago, mechanized surrogates were greeted by society with all the warmth of a "no robots here" sign.
Robotic manufacturing today is critical to efficiency, staying competitive and providing quality products.
Without doubt, Whittaker said, robot metal has proven its mettle, be it for hospital surgery jobs, cleaning up the Chernobyl nuclear mess, peering in on deep-sea vents, climbing atop active volcanoes, even scouring the wreckage of the Titanic or assessing the prospects for life aboard a sunken submarine.
"The robotic revolution has actually occurred. Now it's only a question of that unfolding and the future embracing it," Whittaker said.
"Piece-time" work
One space project among many now underway at The Robotics Institute is Skyworker.
A family of assembly, inspection and maintenance robots is being pursued to autonomously transport and manipulate payloads of kilograms to tons over long distances.
Working in microgravity, Skyworker will balance a payload much like a waiter balances a heavy tray, isolating the weight held at arm's length from the motions of the feet.
Future orbiting facilities and spacecraft will be "piece-time" work for robots, said Peter Staritz, Skyworker project manager at The Robotics Institute.
"Through orbital assembly, solar-sail interstellar probes will be an attainable goal," Staritz said. "Spacecraft that are orders of magnitude larger than anything we've built to date will be the norm once this technology begins to bear fruit," he said.
Well-suited robot
Staritz said that robots provide a level of control and precision that is far greater than that of a human. Be it constructing light, gossamer structures or installing a transmitter array on a space solar-power satellite, Skyworker-class robots are well suited for those tasks.
"Robots will not get bored or distracted during the assembly process," Staritz said. In the orbital assembly realm, robots can handle a large share of the load. As much as 100 percent of the physical work can be assigned to robots, he said.
"The everyday operations will be automated, from actual assembly tasks to replacing batteries. Robots will perform without intervention. Humans will be incorporated in the system as overseers and problem solvers, taking care of a massive failure or unforeseeable occurrence," Staritz said.
Workaholic robots
Earth and the moon have more of a future than just gravitational attraction. The moon will likely become a breeding ground for workaholic robots.
Robots for all reasons will be needed to transform the moon into a suburb of Earth, one that is a high-tech crucible spurring all manner of activity -- from science center to tourist stopover and industrial park.
Thanks to the closeness of Earth and the moon, the 2.7 second round-trip signal time between the two worlds should make running lunar robots, quite literally, a walk in the park.
One NASA-sponsored workshop a few years back took a hard look at human-intelligent machine combinations at the moon, out to the year 2050. Workshop participants concluded that a two-planet economy would be nurtured as Earth and its moon are joined at the hip, economically speaking.
To do so, super-smart automatons on the moon would be on call. They would be duty-bound for mining, building and a spectrum of other chores. A virtual human presence on the moon through "tele-presence" was predicted.
A melding of a human operator to a moon robot's actions could be done through high-fidelity video and other feedback loops. A lunar tele-robot would be electronically wired to its human counterpart some 240,000 miles (386,230 kilometers) away, here on Earth.
The tele-robot concept even sparked a name: Universal Remote Tele-Human Experience Reproduction Environment, or U R THERE. A stretch perhaps, but after all, crystal ball gazing a half-century into the space future is just that.
Carl Pilcher, a NASA space scientist, said the U R THERE idea is doable. "The experience would be truly realistic...an interactive, three-dimensional capability that projects a person onto the moon. As far as you are concerned, you are in that environment where the tele-robot is," Pilcher said.
The human touch
Space exploration beyond Earth orbit will continue to be a robotic preserve, at least in the short term, said Carl Agee, NASA chief scientist for astro-materials at the Johnson Space Center.
"We're not sending humans out to the moon or Mars anytime in the next year or two...so it definitely is robotic," Agee said.
But Agee adds that humans will produce the highest quality and the best flexibility in terms of science exploration. Able to make on-the-spot judgement far from Earth, having great dexterity, interpretive skills and quick reaction time, astronauts win hands-down over robots, he said.
Agee said that robots clearly have a critical role to play in paving the way for human explorers. "There's a place for both here," he said. Ideal for robots are space environments deemed too hostile, dangerous or even boring for humans, he said.
Apollo 17 moonwalker, Jack Schmitt, a geologist, said "the human eye and hand now have, and will indefinitely continue to have, an advantage over robots."
Schmitt said the human brain is an incredible data-compression system.
Robots can take over routine tasks, such as collecting samples or setting up equipment, Schmitt said. But he remains "very skeptical" about the workload that a sensor-laden robot can accomplish contrasted to an astronaut's "nose and belly to the ground," he said.
"But since we don't have a human exploration program, then robots are the best you can do," Schmitt said.
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