NASA show off new 'Star Wars' type PDA 129
urk writes "
NASA's got some prototypes of a new 'personal satellite assistant' that could be joining astronauts in 3 yrs time, from telling them about warnings of gas levels, checking on payloads to reading them bed time stories or teaching them russian. It's a little red sphere that floats around the shuttle / space station by itself. It should be able to talk, relay information and have conversations. Star wars comes to life! " The inspiration for this came from the Practice Ball in the Falcon in A New Hope.
Skins (Score:1)
"Look, I got the basketball skin for BOB!"
Portable, eh? (Score:1)
Yeah. Real portable. It works in space.
"But moommm.... the box said said it'd float in the air... mine justs lays limp on the floor..."
(yeahyeah --- i know. i still think it's cool.)
Re:BOB from The Black Hole (Score:1)
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
toaster wires to make a mini-ramjet? Or one big
fan constantly running, with little harrier style
nozzles all over the outside?
-aiabx
Re:Wrong movie: it was in Flubber (Score:1)
Actually, the first movie that came to mind when I read this item was "Phantasm," in which a little floating orb drilled into people's skulls...
--
As inspirations go... (Score:1)
http://www.whidbey.com/forward/ [whidbey.com]
This may not be that useful at first. (Score:1)
-- Moondog
Re:Who needs a topic (Score:1)
Re:Re-runs (Score:1)
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
1. Compressed air, but carry a small compressor onboard... no big tank to lug.
2. Gimble the internal compressor and use it as a reaction wheel to help with pointing.
Re:how will they test it? (Score:2)
PDA: Personnel Destruction Assistant (Score:1)
Re:The lil' ball friend (Score:1)
I can see it now... some joker astronaut will reprogram one of these things to constantly ask the rest of the crew if they want some toast...
space.com..... (Score:1)
HAL (Score:2)
Propulsion (Score:1)
Hmmm...any other ideas?
GnrcMan
'Cept this one wont shoot at you (Score:1)
But seriously tho, looks pretty spiffy to me. Would make for a great game of low-G Softball.
I wonder how much each ball will cost NASA...
It's the dancing paper clip! (Score:2)
Would you like help?
[] Get help fixing the oxygen leak
[] Just fix the oxygen leak without help
[] Cancel
Hmmm. Pokeball! (Score:1)
A few problems... (Score:1)
2. What happens when it hits a wall? Unless they put even more sensors on it, which brings us back to problem #1...
3. What's this? Should first be deployed in 2001? Aren't they worried it will decide it doesn't like astronauts and go crazy? Damn that Anti-NASA propaganda from many years ago...
4. What if it screws up a command? I'm sure that will happen a lot. I'm not kidding.
5. How much will this little toy cost? Will hovercraft type versions be available for consumers? Will we ever surpass the Jetsons?
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
Voice response is tricky (Score:1)
Still, the sight of these things floating around on video clips on the 6pm news will cause a lot of people to try to figure out how to do a version in gravity. The coolness factor of this thing would be hard to overestimate.
I'm not sure if it reminds me of a "remote" (Score:2)
"Now we'll discuss yout the location of your secret rebel base."
bit from Tron (Score:1)
Re:A few problems... (Score:1)
My solution to this (I'm not a NASA scientist though), would be to make a ball that communicates with a larger system. Just use some wireless technology that won't disturb navigation or anything....
propulsion (Score:2)
Here's a few of my off-the-cuff-dime-a-dozen ideas for propulsion mods/alternatives:
1. Your greatest fan.
ONE fan, possibly exterior, with some sort of rotating outer shell to direct the thrust. This could be a bigger fan with more thrust. Directing the thrust effectively could involve an overly fragile assembley, be overly complex and use up a lot of power, tho'. Or have a single fan statically mounted, but give the SMR some sort of internal gyro thingy that causes it to spin around to redirect the thrust quickly and on the fly (pun intended). It'd be like the space ships on the old Space War game, or Asteroids, except in 3d.
2. Alka-Selter.
The tablets go in, the chamber seals, water is injected, and voila! 'Gas' propulsion, directed to any of the 6 exhaust ports. (belch) Excuse me. Give it a docking bay so it can change tablets itself.
3. Electro-magnetic.
The power of attraction instead of thrust. There's lots of metal in the shuttle, I think. Would it take a lot of power to use internal magnets to pull it this way and that? Bit of a stretch, I know.
4. Carrots.
Design an SMR that likes carrots. Attach a short stick to the top of the SMR with a small bit of carrot fastened to the end of it. The SMR, equipped with various genetic electronic algorhythms, will eventually engineer its own way of attaining the carrot, the most likely result of which will be some sort of thrust. The danger here of course is that it could develop a mutation to get the carrot that compromises the integrity of the crew, like psionic abilities enabling the SMR to psychicly manipulate the crew into endless research and experimentation tasks soley devoted to growing carrots in space, at the expense of their normal duties and survival.
Well. There you have it. Can I have a lab coat?
Another (better) Disney movie: Tron (Score:1)
Nice, but... (Score:3)
The astronauts originally wanted a "tricorder"-type device; a hand-held status report would have been just fine, and a floating sphere with voice recognition is overkill for this project. Was there perhaps a simpler and less expensive way to accomplish this task?
Observations, and my 2 cents... (Score:3)
Propulsion: I would think a stationary, counter-rotating dual blade ducted fan (to solve torque problem) with tubes would be a good way to propel it. Basically, have all the tubes open or closed all the time, but have a tiny wastegate in each to alter the airflow. I would think it could be made lighter than using separate fans for everything.
Another nifty device to have onboard would be a laser pointer:
(remote): Dave, there is a serious oxygen leak over here!
(Dave): Where?
(remote): Right there!
etc... some of those conversations would be much easier if the remote had a means of pointing to exactly what it was talking about.
As far as the voice recognition and control... since it costs about $10k per pound to get those astronauts up there in the first place, I think a ground controller could be paid to sit there & do nothing but watch the feedback from the remotes - if the remote is less than 90% certain what it's doing, he could clarify by keyboard...
I was thinking a compressed gas propulsion system might work, but it would need to be something that can be done with small, lower pressure cartridges (CO2 and Nitrous Oxide come to mind...but I'm not sure I'd want a half-dozen remotes hovering around me farting Carbon Dioxide or Laughing gas...)
toy (Score:1)
SPoons!
get it right (Score:1)
[root@nostromo]$ wondertwin_power -enable
Multiprocessing enabled...starting subsystems
Nodes 1..90 engaging...
Clustering successful. Your Sytem is Totally Flocked.
[root@nostromo]$ glquake&
[root@nostromo]$
Linux? (Score:1)
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
The air hockey table is a good idea. I'd guessed you were going to have to use the 'Vomit Comet' for testing--you could give that work to the interns.
Not sure if you'll read replies to your AC post (if you get an account there's a link that makes checking for replies much easier), but what kind of processor is used? Is the code written in LISP or C like most embedded code?
Thanks.
LOL (Score:1)
(wipes tear from face)
Woo!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
Only if You're Good (Score:1)
;)
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:2)
people that are using up all of our writing pads trying to solve them.
Hi! I might have a solution. I'd guess you are using the fans in pairs, two next to each other
on three axis. (if not, this solution is bogus)
Anyway, set the fans up so that they counter-rotate. The spins will (roughly) cancel each other out.
If the SMR was designed with this in mind (the structure), it could be built with a 3-axis "core" that is hollow, with the fans mounted inside, so it could thrust in 6 directions. It would be able to produce thrust in 3 directions, and change vectors quickly.
Anyway, if you want to brainstorm, email me at "gigantin@shore.net" or start a discussion on sci.space.policy, with either "SMR" or "PSA" in the subject.
Good luck with the project, it's a great idea! And, market the damn thing, when it's finished! 8)
J05H
Collision avoidance (Score:1)
Just how quickly will one of these things be able to stop? And how much will it hurt if it doesn't? (Gravity might be nil, but mass is still mass.)
-- R.
Re:HAL (Score:1)
Hear ye (Score:1)
Go! Play!
It's possible. (Score:1)
I think it would be more intresting if they used Furbys with little jetpacks instead.
Hey, don't forget B5's cameras (Score:1)
Also, these were used in Crusade to explore a section of the ship that was too dangerous to send people.
I'm glad to see these things coming around. How long will one of these things go without having to recharge? I can imagine that Sony could do a good job by porting the Aibo to a few of these for recreation.
Chris
Re:Star Wars? (Score:1)
Wait till NASA comes out with "knife missiles".. then we're in trouble.
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:4)
Couple reasons:
1) The fans spinning wouldn't be an issue with a simple fixed-axis gyroscopic system like they use in airplanes for the horizon control.
2) You can't use one of those with six fans, that's the biggest proof that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. To move around in a 2-d surface, you'd need fans to push it in each of the directions in 3-d space (6, unless you're reversing the fans, but that'd mean having air passages through the device, which uses up a lot of the interior space), PLUS you need fans to control orientation in space. Sure, you could use actuators on a system like the one I mentioned above to force it to turn against the interia of the gyroscopes, but if they were doing that, then the stability wouldn't be an issue would it?
There's pleanty of other ways to counteract the tendancy of the device to spin when the fans turn -- like doubling up on the fans, on axis, and spinning them in opposite directions. But that's twelve fans, and still doesn't solve the problem how how to adjuct yaw, pitch, and roll.
I dunno, I just don't find this post that likely to be real.
I also can't imagine that carrying compressed air really would be an issue. Weight isn't an issue, only mass. And anyone whose ever had the luck to see someone knock a valve off a scuba tank can tell you that mass to thrust, you can get a lot of oomph out of compressed gas, especially in a microgravity environment.
You'd think an engineer working on this would know the distinction.
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
Niko
Re:On 3d movement (Score:1)
As for those complaining about how much R&D on this PDA has cost, and why they didn't just build a tricorder, the point is that NASA wants something that could be used outside the shuttle, say, to inspect heat shield tiles or investigate a crippled satellite. Any PDA data-crunching capability can be kept on a network base (AirPort anyone?), leaving only the manuevering brain in the sphere itself. If all you want is a tricorder, just soup up a f*$%#ing Palm Pilot!
Re:Once again, (Score:1)
CY
Tron not starwars! =) (Score:1)
yes and no? I want one of those! "yes yes yes"
---
Re:Full Internal Processor Necessary? (Score:1)
Re:Whoah! :-) (Score:1)
Re:Great but... (Score:2)
Big Problems with Compressed Gas Propulsion. (Score:1)
--
right on (Score:1)
and a fan for propulsion
Which I'm guessing, since I'm assuming that, the PDA is so small, and since it'll be in the zero (?) gravity of space, it'll be so light that all it'll need are a couple of teensy little fans, kinda like the ones used in laptops.. (they're _so_ small!)
it's a great idea (Score:1)
I think it could do what they say in the news release, just fine.
it's gonna take a while to build the sensors and work out the locomotion stuff. By the time the ball is ready, the software has had a lot of time to grow up. It would be a much nicer place for erwin [userfriendly.org] to live.
I think it's another reason to colonize space.
On 3d movement (Score:3)
The four would give you all the mobility you would need, though the control logic would be horrible (but logic is cheap, hardware is expensive) For starters, every adjustment would use all the fans (except for maybee a few distinct special cases).
Also, if it's gyro stabilized, your aditude adjustments would largely be gyro based, with occasional gyro spin downs using the fans.
Personaly, I would stick a dual fan in the core (on axis, spining in alternate directions) and route inflow and out flow with valves leading to external control points. properly engineered, it could be used as a gyro as well.
My $0.02
-Crutcher
Re:Propulsion (Score:1)
--
Don't believe the AC? Do the physics. (Score:5)
Confucius say: Is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. I believe the AC; I can't take you seriously.
Reminds me of the guidebot from Descent (Score:1)
I imagine that the ball dosen't need to have the
entire memory and computing system inside it.
All it really needs to be is a remote with the
real work going on in a nice secure server via
radio link.
Stick a lil solar panel on it and it could hang out near a window and rechage itself when bored.
In my mind, mini fans on lil arms would make for more effcient locomotion then some internal.
Space shuttle navigation system version
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
I can see two solution:
a) this ball carry a very precise accelerometer
b) you put radio emitters in the space station and the ball use these emitter to know where it is.
And how the astronaut are going to move this ball ?:
- vocal orders:"go left, right, up"
- use a joystick
- a laser pointer (as someone else suggested it)
Is this ball is able to emit images, otherwise it must operate under the direct supervision of astronauts, which limits the usefulness of the thing...
Would Erwin from userfriendly be happy inside? (Score:1)
little toe controls... wheeee!
Bring on Holly (Score:1)
i'm reminded of 'black hole' (Score:1)
i'm also reminded of the little floating robot in one of the later installments of the hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy. ford ripped out his logic and just connected a piece of wire to his 'happy' circuit, so he was robo-orgasmic all the time. i think his name was colin.
nothing to contribute, just reminiscing
Re:Don't believe the AC? Do the physics. (Score:2)
Is it not better to get the number of fans right down, the thing will probably spend 95% of it's time going 'forward' ie the way the camera faces.
Put a tube through the center and have two contra-rotating (kill most of the torque reaction) fans in this tube. this can be pretty efficient for normal forward flight. lead several ducts from this tube to positioning thrusters that can rotate the device and/or provide minimal thrust in other directions (maybe swivel nozles, maybe more but fixed).
You have the advantage over the Harrier that you can make the fan run reverse the Harrier is stuck with forwards only.
Keep all the heavy bits you can near the center to reduce angular momentum. Now you only have one motor and some light control gear.
Of course all these have the problem they only work in an atmosphere, spose you can stick on an ion drive for operation outside
Full Internal Processor Necessary? (Score:1)
Re:My Friend the Red Ball (Score:1)
Yeah, the market for Zero-G devices on earth is so big...
%japh = (
'name' => 'Niklas Nordebo', 'mail' => 'niklas@nordebo.com',
'work' => 'www.pipe-dd.com', 'phone' => '+46-708-444705'
Gravity (Score:1)
Re:On 3d movement (Score:1)
For example if they suspect damage to a section of the spacecraft they can simply send out one of these little guys to take a look. The alternative would be to spend several hours suiting up, outside in EVA and desuiting.
However these things are going to need an alternate propulsion system for vacuum as opposed to those fans (nothing to push against in space). A simple compressed air system would be perfect, and would also be safe for internal use if you just compressed the normal breathing mix.
Re:how will they test it? (Score:1)
Re:The lil' ball friend (Score:2)
Great but... (Score:2)
Who needs a topic (Score:3)
Wrong movie: it was in Flubber (Score:1)
OK, I just checked at the IMDB, and it was called Weebo. What a dumb name. Cool idea, though.
Re:Propulsion (Score:1)
George
BOB from The Black Hole (Score:2)
Re:it's a great idea (Score:1)
--
Only six? (Score:1)
An easier method would be to use several dozen small, fixed compressed air jets. Only a few would be used at any one time, and things such as yaw, pitch, etc could be accomplished by jets set tangent to the sphere's surface.
Re:HAL (Score:1)
once I read the part that said (Score:2)
If our NASA elite have not yet set some sort of detection system to alert the astronauts of an oxygen leak then as of now - I have stopped supporting them.
Lastly, I'm sure that's the first thing an astronaut wants when he is trying to think of a solution is a stupid red ball flying around his head like a horse-fly saying -
"YOU HAVE AN OXYGEN LEAK"
"YOU ARE GOING TO DIE SOON IF YOU DON'T THINK OF SOMETHING"
"GOOD THING I DON'T NEED OXYGEN"
"YOU SHOULD UPDATE YOUR CARGO BAY DOOR DRIVERS"
"I AM A BALL, WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME"
I could see it now - an astronaut swating violently at some ball that is dodging his every swipe while repeating in a Johny5 voice "you have an oxygen leak, you have an oxygen leak"
I would just save the R&D money and stick with the alert buzzer/light.
Re:Don't believe the AC? Do the physics. (Score:3)
Aircraft attitude-control systems use aerodynamic forces, not gyroscopic, to aim the nose in the desired direction. The gyros are for
reference, not reaction.
No kidding? Really? Damn, no wonder I had to push on those pedel things and turn that wheel last time I was flying a plane. I was confused for a moment. Betcha I was talking about the artificial horizon. Ooops. Probably should've spelled that out. My bad.
Here's an experiment for you kids at home: Take the wheel off your bike. Hold on to both sides of the axle, and get someone to spin it for you. Try to rotate it. Every first grader has done that in science class (except in Kansas where the wheel doesn't exist because the Bible has the value of Pi wrong, and Man never evolved to calculate it better...). You most certainly can stabilize an object from rotational forced using three gyrosopes aligned to each axis.
Oh, and they're frequently used in missile guidance systems for stabilization, not just referance.
'Fraid he's right and you're not. You have exactly three perpendicular axes, so three thrust lines will do. To balance torque around each
one, you have two fans per axis. Each fan pair can pull as well as push, so you do not need two fans per face. Three axes * 2 fans/axis = 6
fans.
'Fraid you're doing the same thing he did, assuming you've got to be able to control movement in three axis when maneuvering in 3-D. Obviously you've never tried it. I haven't in zero-g, obviously, but I have underwater. You need to be able to move along X, Y, and Z, plus rotate around those axis (yaw, pitch, roll). Otherwise you can't turn around. And notice in the diagrams there's a camera. Sucks if something interesting is happening behind it and it can't turn around.
You don't need two fans per face, that's true. But unless you have them equidistant from the center of gravity, you have stability and control issues. If you have them inline, spinning in opposite directions (one fan blade has its blades inverted), then you can cancel it out. But with only six, you need to vent the air for the opposite site through the device, with as little resistance as you get on the powered side. Tough to get right, but doable. Not much room for electronics in a sphere like that after you do, however. Six just can't do it. Hell, four can't do it in 2-D, because you still have X, Y, and orientation (three axis instead of six).
Look up Froude efficiency, and compare that of an air jet to a fan 4 cm across. Then compute the energy capacity of a volume of
compressed air at 1000 PSI, and the same volume of NiMH battery. How long can each deliver 0.01 Newton of thrust? Show your work.
You're operating in a nearly frictionless environment. Efficiency isn't an issue. You need accuracy in thrust. Releasing compressed gas through an accurate valve is a lot more precise than issues with varying efficiency of a fan at different speeds, and compensating for spin-up time. But that's neither here nor there. Six gas jets, six fans, either way its simply not going to work.
Confucius say: Is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
Maybe you oughta stop reading the fortune cookies, and think more about your posts.
STAR WARS and NASA (Score:1)
Re:right on (Score:2)
If this works, expect a larger unit for vacuum work, as NASA tries to do everything possible to reduce the number of EVAs required. You would need another propulsion system (likely a compressed-air system), some lead shielding (orbital radiation is likely to mess up your average microprocessor), and something to bleed off waste heat (you have to radiate, rather than just dump heat to the surrounding air).
Or they could shake it (Score:1)
Re:It's possible. (Score:1)
Add to that a microthruster system using the same kind of tech that are in ink-jet printers, and you have the guts of a free-roving flying 'bot.
Re:Full Internal Processor Necessary? (Score:1)
Re:Use a structured command language (Score:1)
Dreamweaver
Re:HAL (Score:1)
The ball next to the fridge has decided to call itself Dennis . . .
Re:right on (Score:1)
Re:Full Internal Processor Necessary? (Score:1)
You still need to do the physics. (Score:1)
Incidentally, I hope you don't forget to pull power next time you do a spin to the left. If the engine is cranked up to speed the gyro effect of the prop can hold the nose up and put you into a flat spin, and judging from your comments above I don't know if you'd be able to reliably recover from the normal situation.
Notice something else when doing that experiment: If you try to use the gyro wheel to torque yourself around or resist an outside torque, it precesses; the axis of rotation shifts direction. This destroys your 3-space reference. Gyro tables are gimballed and often servoed to offset bearing friction in the gimbals; the whole point is to avoid torquing the gyros, so they will remain pointing in the same direction in space.Just a hint: you're not symmetrically buoyant in the water. Your legs are a lot heavier than your lungs, giving you a head-up bias. You can't generalize from what you experience paddling around with your hands to zero-G.
Not necessary. Air will flow over the surface of the sphere and detach on the opposite side where the converging flows cause the pressure to increase and make the boundary layer separate. Nothing needs to go through the sphere unless it's convenient, which leaves you room for nice things like cameras, computers, batteries and motors. If you'd care to place a small wager on the results of the NASA development effort and the number of fans it requires, feel free to contact me. I love betting on a sure thing. I see you failed to do the physics. Also:Re:Re-runs (Score:1)
There seems to have been some progression by the engineers since the first article (which I missed), so I would class it as an update. And new can refer to something that already exists. As in here's the first version of the doodad, and here's the new version.
Whoah! :-) (Score:1)
I hope it doesn't get sucked down the special "astronaut toilet".
-konstant
-konstant
Use a structured command language (Score:1)
Seems like something like that was used in one of Niven and Pornelle's "Integral Trees" novels, but I can't remember which one off-hand. Anyways, to access the computer, the grad used a Russian (I think) word to get the computer's attention, followed by the necessary command.
Re:BOB from The Black Hole (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm. Pokeball! (Score:3)
Propulsion (Score:1)
Re:how will they test it? (Score:1)
This is sad that it reminds me of this... (Score:1)
Let the NASA engineers work, guys.. (Score:2)
Think about it: These guys are NASA engineers; I don't think a bunch of Slashdot posts are going to come up with anything they haven't thought of yet.
That's not to say I don't enjoy reading them, and I'd probably enjoy reading NASA's take on propulsion ideas more, but here on Slashdot, these ideas are all academic and, for the most part, either redundant or faulty.
Never had a Gyro as a kid, huh? (Score:3)
Looks like the one on Star Wars (Score:1)
My Friend the Red Ball (Score:5)
I figure I may as well chime in here. I'm one of the research scientists at NASA working on the PSA (though it's been renamed SMR, Spacecraft MicroRobot, nobody seems to want to call it that). Right now, we have a version that floats on an air hockey table in two dimensions (actually, a fifteen ton granite slab is the table, and the PSA has an air pump so that it floats like a hovercraft), just as a proof of concept and to test control algorithms. We are currently designing the gimbal to test the three dimensional (though larger, since it will still be a prototype) version, which we are also designing right now.
As for a few of the things posted by other people: the speech technology is pretty far along. If you look at the NYT this morning, there is an article about a car computer that accepts speech commands. There are still many issues that we need to work on, but it's not that far off.
The current plan for propulsion are a bank of six fans (not pictured on the model). We have four fans on the 2D version, so 6 will give us enough to move in 3D. Compressed air is a nice idea, but the question becomes how to direct it, how to generate it (assumming that you don't want to have to carry a canister, which is very heavy), and how much force you can actually get from it.
I like the image of a PSA avatar (the dancing paperclip).
We can test it in microgravity in two ways: First, we are building the gimbal that I mentioned above, which allows us to test it in a limited range here in the lab. Second, we will use the "Vomit Comet", the plane that goes into a long dive, providing low-gravity for about thirty seconds at a time.
And yes, the fans spinning up in micro-g cause all kinds of control problems. From where I'm sitting, I can see two people that are using up all of our writing pads trying to solve them.
The lil' ball friend (Score:2)
Help you practice your lightsabre skills.
Actually work as a tennis ball;
Always end its statements by 'But then again, I'm just a ball!'
Come coated with Nerf foam for stress relief.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."