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Forming Human-Robot Teams Across Time and SpaceNASA pushes telerobotics to distances that span the Solar System. At this scale, time of flight for communication is limited by the speed of light, inducing long time delays, narrow bandwidth and the real risk of data disruption. NASA also supports missions where humans are in direct contact with robots during extravehicular activity (EVA), giving a range of zero to hundreds of millions of miles for NASA s definition of "tele". . Another temporal variable is mission phasing. NASA missions are now being considered that combine early robotic phases with later human arrival, then transition back to robot only operations. Robots can preposition, scout, sample or construct in advance of human teammates, transition to assistant roles when the crew are present, and then become care-takers when the crew returns to Earth. This paper will describe advances in robot safety and command interaction approaches developed to form effective human-robot teams, overcoming challenges of time delay and adapting as the team transitions from robot only to robots and crew. The work is predicated on the idea that when robots are alone in space, they are still part of a human-robot team acting as surrogates for people back on Earth or in other distant locations. Software, interaction modes and control methods will be described that can operate robots in all these conditions. A novel control mode for operating robots across time delay was developed using a graphical simulation on the human side of the communication, allowing a remote supervisor to drive and command a robot in simulation with no time delay, then monitor progress of the actual robot as data returns from the round trip to and from the robot. Since the robot must be responsible for safety out to at least the round trip time period, the authors developed a multi layer safety system able to detect and protect the robot and people in its workspace. This safety system is also running when humans are in direct contact with the robot, so it involves both internal fault detection as well as force sensing for unintended external contacts. The designs for the supervisory command mode and the redundant safety system will be described. Specific implementations were developed and test results will be reported. Experiments were conducted using terrestrial analogs for deep space missions, where time delays were artificially added to emulate the longer distances found in space.
Document ID
20120008818
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Hambuchen, Kimberly (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Burridge, Robert R. (TRACLabs, Inc. Houston , TX, United States)
Ambrose, Robert O. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Bluethmann, William J. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Diftler, Myron A. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Radford, Nicolaus A. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
May 22, 2012
Subject Category
Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence And Robotics
Report/Patent Number
JSC-CN-26347
Meeting Information
Meeting: Global Space Exploration Conference
Location: Washington, DC
Country: United States
Start Date: May 22, 2012
End Date: May 24, 2012
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, International Astronautical Federation
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

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