Project M, the mission to land a humanoid robot on the moon within 1000 days, has been described by the New York Times as a ‘guerrilla effort’ within NASA. The plan was announced in 2009, at a time when Barack Obama’s scaled-back plans for space exploration were becoming apparent. Obama shelved a proposed manned mission to the moon until 2028: ‘That is too many Presidential administrations in the future to be relevant or meaningful,’ says NASA engineer Matt Ondler.
The engineering team behind Project M – led by Stephen J Altemus at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston – has used discretionary funds, bartered with private engineering companies, and persuaded other NASA units to co-operate on this mission. So far, £5.5m has been spent on the programme, and engineers claim to still be on track for a 2013 landing. It is estimated that the total cost would be £300m, compared to £93bn for a human mission to the moon. According to the Project M engineers, the economy of the mission means that robots will play an ever-more important role in space exploration.
February 2011 sees the first fruits of the effort: NASA will launch Robonaut 2 (R2) into space, on board the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The 150kg robot will be delivered to the International Space Station, where it will be tested, refined and used to assist the human crew members with basic tasks.
R2 has been designed by NASA engineers along with robotics specialists at General Motors. Its primary purpose is to carry out dexterous tasks in difficult or dangerous environments that would otherwise require human astronauts. The 1 metre-tall humanoid robot consists of a head, which contains five cameras behind its reflective visor to provide depth perception and infrared vision; a torso, which houses the robot’s 38 Power PC Processors, and two arms, each capable of lifting a 10kg weight. Its operation is based on partial robotic autonomy – carrying out pre-programmed tasks – and partly on relaying sensory information to human operators so that R2 can be used to perform intricate tasks at remote locations.
At first, R2 will be confined to operations in the ISS’s Destiny laboratory, deployed on a fixed pedestal. Lower body elements, such as legs and wheels to propel the R2 across Lunar and Martian terrain, are currently in development.
The most advanced engineering in R2 has been focused on the hands. Unlike previous humanoid robots, R2 has slim fingers and thumbs; they have 12 degrees of freedom as well as two degrees of freedom in wrist. R2 has tendons to connect the skeletal joints to sensors in the finger-tips and actuators in the palm. These allow R2’s control systems to sense reaction forces and continuously adjust the grip. In public demonstrations, R2’s party trick has been to shake the hands of every visitor; no matter what size hand or the firmness of the grip, the robot automatically adjusts. For GM, this dexterity marks a step-change from Asimo, the robot created by Japanese car manufacturer Honda, which has become a familiar icon for advanced robotics for more than 10 years.
As well as a demonstration of technology to the government, Project M is a public relations exercise. R2’s intricate hands may be engineered to carry out delicate tasks, but the sleek lines of its gold-and-silver head – reminiscent of designs from Battlestar Galactica or Robocop – and the superhero proportions of its torso are designed to generate excitement in the general public. ‘A humanoid robot walking on the moon will inspire students and demonstrate our technological prowess. We also thought quite frankly, President Obama might agree that it is a compelling and worthy mission for NASA to conduct,’ says Ondler.
In its white paper proposing the project, produced in February last year, NASA stated: ‘A humanoid robot will be to this century what the automobile, the television and the personal computer were to the last century… The nation that leads the industry of robotics, the nation that designs, produces and markets robots, will dominate the global economy in this century.’ This is, of course, promotional talk: it seems a curiously old-fashioned vision of future economies. Yet as a robotic remake of the 1969 moon landing, Project M will be a reminder of the inspirational value of technological progress.
Robonaut is scheduled to launch up to the International Space Station on February 24th at 4:50 PM EST.
