Floating robot assistant in Space Station powered by an Android

Science fiction novels and movies are replete with robots that keep floating about in the air, helping and doing activities. That invention remained in the realms of the novels and movies for a long time simply because the earth's gravitational force made it impossible to move robots that way. Today, with full-fledged space missions in progress where there are near-zero gravity conditions, the idea of floating robots again seems to gain interest. And NASA has already completed successful tests in the deployment of a robot that floats around the spaceship!

Floating robot servant for Space Station powered by an Android phone

The Space Agency had no hesitation in admitting that the idea for their floating robot came from science fiction. Since the Smart Sphere has the Samsung Nexus phone as its brains, we could simply call it the floating droid! Of course, the phone chip has been removed to eliminate interference and the Li-ion battery of the phone has been replaced with AA batteries. Also known as the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites or SPHERES in short, these intelligent robots are useful for inspecting areas of the station to assist the ISS astronauts.

The smartphone is connected to the robot via a cable. A Wi-Fi wireless network connects the smartphones to the space station's computer network system. Thus, the robot can be remotely controlled. The use of other smartphones is also being contemplated upon by NASA.

The space agency, however, is not simply sitting pretty over the successful launch of the floating robot. They want to explore avenues to see if it can also endure flights outside the station also. And then, gradually over time, the idea is to engage the robot in more challenging tasks. Once that is done, an army of robots can easily manage most of the space station tasks.

The Smart Sphere was created as part of the Human Exploration Telerobotics project. To help the robot move about, it has been loaded with carbon dioxide gas. It releases this gas and propels itself. Since the gravity is almost nil in space, even a small gas release will provide sufficient thrust. A pressure gauge on the robot gives information about the carbon dioxide levels and whether a refill is necessary. When full, the carbon dioxide tank can hold about 172 gm of the gas.

A single thruster of the gas provides a force of about 0.1 N. Ultrasonic receivers and an adjustable regulator complete the body of the robot. The robot itself is very light in weight and weighs only about 4.4 kg. It has an 8 inches diameter and easily floats about the space station.

As Terry Fong, the project manager for this wonderful robotics project put it, the tests that NASA is conducting attempts to make better use of robots to provide versatile support to human explorers. The robots will be extremely useful in both Earth orbit missions and longer missions to other worlds!

Via: DailyMail