70 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
70 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: SPACE STATION ROBOTICS FILE: UFO2160
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==========================================================================
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NASA SPACE NEWS
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==========================================================================
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Release No. 90-035
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NASA, UNIVERSITIES CONSORTIUM TO STUDY SPACE STATION ROBOTICS
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A laboratory as big as Texas employing the state's brightest students
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will soon be put to work with NASA to aide in developing robotics for Space
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Station Freedom.
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The NASA/JSC Universities Space Automation and Robotics Consortium will
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link robotics laboratories at Rice University, the University of Texas at
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Arlington and Texas A&M University with JSC labs to study the Robotics tasks
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planned for Space Station Freedom. The labs will be interconnected by a
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computer network to allow the universities to remotely control each other's
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robots as well as those at JSC. Experiments can then be carried out in
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what will essentially be a statewide lab. The project, proposed to NASA by
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the four schools, will be funded by a $240,000.00 grant to begin before
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October.
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The Consortium was formed by the schools in 1989, all of which,
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excluding UTA, have been participants in past NASA robotics research.
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"With the interconnected labs and the consortium, we'll be able to
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take advantage of all the different areas of expertise exhibited by the
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schools," Carl Adams, NASA project engineer, said. The schools' areas of
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expertise include the machine vision and mobile robotics at Rice; manual
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controllers and modular robot architectures at UT; system architectures
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and artificial intelligence at A&M; and human performance and workloads at
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UTA.
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"People today use computer networks to exchange data, but we'll be
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using this network to control robots at the four universities and the JSC
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labs from remote facilities," said Prof. Rui de Figueiredo, Rice reseacher
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and consortium chairman. "The universities got together and approached NASA
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with the idea to better coordinate our efforts and areas of specialty. It's
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a logical arrangement." The four universities jointly presented the
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proposed consortium to NASA, where Charles R. Price, chief of the Robotic
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Systems Developement Branch at JSC, suggested a computer link among the
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labs to study simultaneous control of multiple robots.
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The universities' areas of expertise are complementary, and, in
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addition to space station maintenance studies, an evaluation of future
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robotics applications in space will be conducted by the consortium. The
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connected labs will allow NASA a flexibility to use research conducted by the
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schools in a way that has not been possible before.
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"We can be of great bennefit to the Space Station Freedom Program."
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de Figueiredo said. "And the importance of the work, along with it's posture
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on the cutting edge of robotics, will provide a strong motivation and a sense
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of real accomplishment for our students."
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"We're trying to creat one large lab," Adams added. "It's good for the
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schools, and the students get to work on something that has a direct
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application, and it's good for us --NASA gets the benefits of their work."
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De Figueiredo chairs the consortium and it's project's principla
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investigator at Rice; Prof. Delbert Tesar is UT's principal investigator;
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Prof. George Kondraske is UTA's principal investigator; and Prof. Volz is
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A&M's principal investigator.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |