A modified Da Vinci surgical robot is helping NASA study how robots can refuel and service space satellites, remotely controlled from Earth. The agency's Notional Robotic Servicing Mission is looking for ways that fully robotic spacecraft can perform servicing of GEO (geosynchronous earth orbit) satellites in space, avoiding the cost and danger of sending astronauts to do the same job.
In a recent demonstration, engineering and computer science graduate students at Johns Hopkins University's campus in Baltimore modified a Da Vinci surgical robot console and used it and a workstation to control an industrial robot at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center 30 miles away. The modified surgical robot also included a 3D eyepiece, which allowed the Baltimore operator to guide the remote industrial robot. The Da Vinci robot's 3D HD vision system gives operators 3D high-definition video displays for accurate depth perception, as well as an immersive experience that feels as if the robot is a virtual extension of the operator's body.
The Dextre robot in NASA's predecessor Robotic Refueling Mission transfers and installs the tools module onto its permanent home on the International Space Station. (Source: NASA)
The goal of the research is to adapt strategies used in robotic operating rooms to the tasks needed to repair and service broken satellites and other in-orbit space hardware. Repairing a satellite fuel line, for example, includes complex and delicate tasks that are not that different from the complex tasks a surgeon must perform when guiding a robot through delicate abdominal surgery. "We’re using the expertise we’ve developed in medical robotics technology and applying it to some of the remote-controlled tasks that NASA wants space robots to perform in repairing and refueling satellites," said Louis Whitcomb, a Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering professor, in a press release. Whitcomb helped supervise the Goddard Space Flight Center end of the demonstration.
The John Hopkins engineers' work was done in cooperation with West Virginia University, and funded by a research grant from NASA. John Hopkins' Sensing, Manipulation, and Real-Time System (SMART) lab has done extensive research on components and integrated systems required for computer-assisted surgery. Researchers have explored the integration of real-time imaging, such as video and ultrasound, for robotic assistance in applications such as microsurgery. Component technology research includes high-performance motor control, electromagnetic and inertial sensing, and sensor fusion.
In November of 2009 I underwent prostate cancer surgery. The DaVinci robot was the instrument used to perform the surgery.
More than two years later I feel great and without a trace of cancer. I suspect if the robot is nimble enough to perform prostate surgery, satellites in need of repair shouldn't have much to worry about.
BuzzBodhi, I remember those days, too. But it's been awhile, and now there's a lot more funding for medical research, plus way more OTS technology software and hardware platforms. I agree, this looks like a circling back of technology development.
That's an interesting comment, vimalkumarp. I agree about the need to better link different different knowledge domains. But I think it's been awhile, at least in the US, since mil-aero was the source domain for new electronics tech, although that may have shifted in the last few years. For some time now, since the rise of the consumer sector, it seems like most of the technology platforms have come from there, since that's where most of the R&D dollars were going. Perhaps this has been different in the area of robotics.
Normal trend is to use the high technology developed for space application for solving common man's problems. Here the role reversal which clearly shows the importance of linking different domains of knowledge.
naperlou, thanks for weighing in on satellite costs. That's about what I thought. Although the webpage that describes NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office's Notional Robotic Servicing Mission, which my story discusses, does imply that satellites cost a lot, no dollar amounts are given. You've got a good point about latency. That, and other things, made me wonder just how much can really be tested here on terra firma for remotely operating robots in space. Of course, this is at the very beginning of the research project and was simply an initial demo, so we don't know what's planned for later in the process. I agree it's not a done deal.
Ann, the cost of those satellites is enormous. Frankly, the sending of a human mission may still be worth it, if the government could bet its programs back together.
I worked on some of the satelites that are in low earth orbit as well as geosync. A price tag of $1.5B for a single satelite is not undheard of. Many of these were part of a constellation.
Of course, one of the issues of the space program is funding. I worked on the Space Station Program for a large aerospace contractor in the mid 1980s. I worked with people who had worked on it ten years priior. It was finally launched at least ten years after I worked on it. Believe me, there was not that much change in between in the design.
There is an issue with servicing a satelite in geosync orbit that, from the article, is not fully resolved. That is one communications engineers run into with satellites, namely latency. The distances over which the robots would be operated require an approach different from that used in terrestial systems.
The concept at the time I worked on these things was to bring the geosync satellites into low earth orbit where the shuttle or space station could provide a platform to work on them using robot and human resources.
I think those are good points about difficulties caused by the need to use telemetry. However, if the machine vision is good enough to do surgery with by a remote operator, it may well be good enough to give enough feedback to the human operator on earth so that, for example, a piece of equipment in the way would be relatively simple for the robot to negotiate. It's also poissible, if not likely, that the equipment needing reapir is or will be designed with all that in mind.
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