Help Nasa Design the Next Generation Flying Bot
NASA may well have a lot of smart brains working for it, but the space agency recognizes that it doesn’t necessarily have the monopoly on great ideas when it comes to space research and getting into space.
Its latest open innovation project is to invite people from all over the world to contribute to the design of the Astrobee free-flying robot.
Astrobee is intended to help the crew on the International Space Station by performing such repetitive tasks as surveys and inspections.
The open innovation contest is looking for a robotic arm for its next generation bot to allow it to interact with small objects and better move around the station.
The contest has been posted on Freelancer.com and is being conducted in three phases:
Phase 1: NASA will survey respondents to pick the top 30 to help design the architecture of the arm.
Phase 2: this will require each of the 30 to help NASA work out multiple ways to approach creating a decomposed architecture of a complex system.
Phase 3: crowdsource the detailed designs of numerous subcomponents based on the specifications created by the thirty freelancers as well as those from NASA’s team.
“NASA has grown in the multiple ways we engage the crowd to provide solutions to challenges we face when advancing complex space systems,” said NASA’s Director of Advanced Exploration Systems, Jason Crusan.
“This challenge continues that expansion and will help to create novel designs but also allow us to learn about sophisticated system design through the use of open innovation. We continue to explore the many ways to engage external innovators.”
For more information about the crowdsourcing contest to register to take part, click here.
Reader Comments
yeh,it's a great idea to make collaboration with peoples to design of the Astrobee free-flying robot.....
Posted by alice on February 10, 2016
just a suggestion, to pick up small samples in or outside of the station, use a rubber tipped tweezers with micro-notch on tip to spoon in the small objects. micro-cam on tip of the tweezers for better visual.
Posted by Enrico M.S. on February 3, 2016
wish to contribute to the success of this discovery and assist in improving it
Posted by Joseph nyaku on January 27, 2016
I have attempted to patent a non reactive drive for moving objects in space/free fall. My patent request was denied because: it was too difficult for a practitioner to construct (it only had 6 moving parts!); only produced motion due to skip/hopping on a gravity affected flat surface; and (of course) violated Newton's third law. Relative to Newton, NASA is, I understand, now investigating an electronic device which may induce non reactive motion, so the opposition to by-passing Newton's Third Law may be weakening. Also, Newton's 3rd apparently applies to bodies affected by a constant force. My devices operate by impulse. The devices I have made and tested, apparently producing lateral displacement when dropped from a height (free fall) may be produced in forms no larger than a person's palm, and possibly much smaller. Such devices operating on the tri-axis of a sensor bearing body in free fall would assist development of the Astrobee robot.
Posted by David S. Smith, Ph.D. on January 27, 2016
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