NASA Challenges People To Use Its Broken Robot To Fix Things on Mars
Notice of Centennial Challenges Space Robotics Challenge
“The following virtual challenge scenario serves as a backdrop for developing coding advancements that enable the autonomy of humanoid robotics: In the not too distant future, R5 as arrived on Mars along with supplies ahead of a human mission. Overnight a dust storm damaged the habitat and solar array, and caused the primary communication antenna to become misaligned. R5 must now repair an air leak in the habitat, deploy a new solar panel, and align the communication antenna. Teams will use software to control a simulated R5 in order to resolve the problems caused by the dust storm. … The competition arena will contain a rover, solar panels, communication dish, and a habitat on a Martian plain. Each component will be within eyesight and walking distance of each other.”
Keith’s note: Gee, this sounds like a summary of “The Martian” including the notion that wind on Mars is powerful enough to mess with the main communication antenna.
“In 2035, NASA astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist and mechanical engineer, has been left stranded on Mars after the crew of the Ares III mission were forced to evacuate their landing site in Acidalia Planitia due to an intense dust storm with high winds. Watney was impaled by an antenna during the evacuation and believed dead. His injury proves relatively minor, but with no way to contact Earth, Watney must rely on his own resourcefulness to survive.”
The Droid That NASA Should Be Sending To Mars, earlier post
“While NASA pours money into its goofy R5 robot that cannot walk unless it is on a hoist, controlled by a human, and is always broken, Boston Dynamics continues to make astonishing progress on autonomous robots.”
It is a little odd that NASA is issuing a challenge that focuses on a functional (but simulated) R5 robot when NASA’s R5 does not even work – and two college teams have been given contracts to fix what NASA can’t fix. One would think that the R5 problems would be solved before people spent a lot of time using its current design to create simulations of how a real robot might work. Indeed, wouldn’t it make more sense to use state of the art robots that already exist? You’d think that NASA would encourage people to work with robots that actually work. As currently designed R5 would be part of the problem on Mars – not the solution.
– Using a Last Place Robot for NASA’s Robotics Challenge
– NASA JSC Has Developed A Girl Robot in Secret (Revised With NASA Responses), earlier post
– Is JSC’s R5 Droid Worth Fixing?
– Never Ask NASA a Simple Question, earlier post
– NASA Awards Two Robots to University Groups for R&D Upgrades, earlier post
Who knows seeing how the physical body of the R5 (as of the last NASA update) is in Scotland maybe they can fix it.
I know this is a stupid question, but why Scotland?
It’s at the University of Edinburgh where it will go through research after getting upgrades, whatever that means.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/au…
I imagine that a lot of very talented robotics nerds would play this game without the million bucks of incentive (plus whatever they’re paying the company running it). I wonder if they considered seeing what that turns up first?
The robotic mining competition at KSC has been quite successful attracting university teams with excitement and career relevance rather than money.
Wouldn’t a better challenge be to design a robot to autonomously perform actual exploration tasks such as negotiating around obstacles and identifying and sampling “interesting” strata?
Can’t it be both? 🙂
Seriously, though, it should be both. It would be good to have better autonomous robots for exploration, and also nice to have robots that can be remotely controlled to repair other robots.
I agree, particularly with your phrase “remotely controlled” for repair robots. If the robot is part of a manned mission and is repairing the habitat, then naturally the crew will want to control it directly and there will be no communication lag and no need for autonomy. The primary effectors are tools and manipulators and the ability to maneuver around the habitat and get into confined spaces.
However if the robot is an exploration rover, whether on Mars or Titan, and there are no people around, it will have to decide what to do on its own. The primary effectors will be cameras, sampling and analysis systems with possibly some tools for self-repair.
That would, however, be boring. It sounds like NASA is trying to get people excited enough about programing a robot, for them to do so on their own time and at their own expense. While I agree with Shackelton’s comment about it being “better to be a live donkey than a dead lion,” it isn’t as exciting. Especially if it’s only a simulation. A robot to make emergency repairs is exciting; a robot to identify geological formations is more practical and useful, but it isn’t as exciting (unless you’re a geologist.)
Sometimes the NASA organizations involved in these projects just won’t see, or won’t admit, that what they are doing is mostly training, people getting smarts in a field where NASA feels it has to be able to say it has people. Check that box off. Are there Robotics at NASA? Yes. It’s these people over here. Check.
For lack of many ingredients though, especially slowness in getting anything done, purchased, approved, and just bureaucracy, as well as lack of incentives and a sense of ownership, the results can be poor. Other examples of this occur in small launch, weather the launcher or payloads, new materials like composites, or the hot new thing like 3D printing, fill in the blank, etc. All these start out sold as NASA leading the way, R&D, hurrah! NASA doing something industry won’t, but really just ending up as handfuls of people here and there smart on what’s going on in the field but not much more. It’s just the way all these people stay busy, NASA shows pretty pictures on its websites, and the fiction of progress and leadership carries on.
Lots has to change, otherwise it’s just NASA people getting all dressed up with no where to go cause the party is always somewhere else, always a day late and a dollar short. But hey, it keeps people busy, and the illusion of progress and leadership is strengthened. You know, like SLS and Orion, also training make-work exercises, just bigger.
This has not gone unnoticed at NASA. For instance, the Deputy Administrator recently pointed out that while SpaceX resolved the issue with the launch explosion in a matter of weeks, that NASA would have required six months just to appoint the review committee.
I never assume that the people in charge are anything but very very smart and very aware of the issues we rag about here and elsewhere. And add to that a huge amount of frustration as they attempt to slog through their jobs.
1. The robot works well. Quieter, lighter, smaller, and more maneuverable than ATLAS. Not sure why you think it’s broken.
2. The harness is for safety falls to prevent damage. It’s not actually used to hold up the robot, and actually will interfere with the dynamics of robot control if engaged.
3. What “problems” are you even talking about? Controls? Software? Hardware? Mechanical and electrical limitations have been improved (they were never a “problem”), software in continually being upgraded (just like every other piece of software in the world), and new control systems and algorithms are always being written and developed. That’s robotics. Everywhere.
4. Every robot, whether a drone, UAV, ROV, or humanoid, is tested in a sim. This program is used to develop and evaluate the control system. You don’t do initial testing of a new control scheme using a $1million robot.
5. This robot was sent out to the world to further autonomous humanoid robotic development, just like what BD did with ATLAS for the DARPA Robotic Challenge. As seen in the IEEE Spectrum videos and commentary previously linked, this robot has great potential.
“This robot has a lot more sensing available than we had on Atlas, including joint side position and torque sensing, and consequently considerably higher fidelity torque control. I believe that this will be very enabling for some of the control approaches we want to try. The downside is that it has less power available, and relatively more distal mass (e.g. heavy feet). That will likely limit its ability to do step recovery (you just can’t move your feet fast enough). It’s a trade-off that we’re excited to evaluate.” – MIT’s Russ Tedrake
Next time you want to bash NASA JSC and it’s research programs, do a little more research so you don’t look like such a fool.
I am not bashing anything. I am posting news about a taxpayer funded project that has not received any external review, that has not accomplished its tasks, and is objected to by NASA HQ, It uses older, non-state of the art robotics instead of attracting cutting edge capabilities offered by others. INdeed, this robot was in last place when it competed with other robots http://nasawatch.com/archiv…