NASA has awarded an SnT Doctoral researcher at a competition for programming space robot operating systems.
Learning to learn rather than storing data – this is the original approach developed by Andrej Orsula. The Doctoral researcher from SnT at the University of Luxembourg is working to enable robots to learn by themselves to gain autonomy and efficiency during space missions. He won second prize last summer during the NASA space robot programming competition.
The challenges of space robots
The agency aims to speed up research on Space ROS, or space robot operating systems.
These machines face a big challenge: they deal with very different weather and climate than we know. Space ROSE work in isolated areas without important signals like GPS. Plus, there’s a delay in instructions because of the distance from ground control.
A tri-dimensional solution
Orsula worked for two weeks to submit his project to NASA. His project titled “Parallel ProcGen Environments” stood out with three aspects:
- Parallel: the ability to run thousands of simulations simultaneously;
2. ProcGen: Procedural generation creates synthetic data. This helps overcome the limits of available data for recreating a space environment.
3. Environments: Robots can use this simulation to learn tasks. They experience the environment through a reward system that encourages positive behaviour.
Space and alien environments are mostly unknown and unpredictable. “This makes traditional control methods less appealing. They don’t work well in many cases,” says Orsula.
A step towards space robots independence
To progress, space robots thus find themselves somewhat forced to learn. Researchers aim to teach AI to robots. Their mission is to help robots perform tasks independently.
NASA will create a framework to simulate and test robots. This will happen in expansive environments generated through a specific procedure. The submission focused on new simulation environments for robots in space. It features places such as the Moon, Mars, and orbit.
“I’m interested in research that combines robot learning with space robotics,” comments Orsula whoshould finish his doctoral thesis on this theme this year. For him, this NASA award is a great chance to increase the visibility of his work.
Space robots have much to learn. They continue to explore and enrich research across many environments.
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About SpaceR
The Space Robotics research group (SpaceR) conducts research in autonomous planetary and orbital robotics for space exploration, in-situ resource utilisation and orbital servicing. In addition, the group also focuses on aerial and ground robotics and multi-robot cooperation.