In two years, Japanese robot avatars will appear on the ISS.

By 2020, aboard the International SpaceThe station may receive several Japanese robots at once who will be engaged in the dirtiest and dangerous work, while the real crew of the ISS will be able to fully devote themselves to more complex and scientific projects. However, sending robotic assistant assistants to the ISS is only a preliminary goal of the Japanese space agency JAXA, which, together with the GITAI startup, is developing robot avatars with which people on Earth can perform work in space using telepresence.

"With the help of robotics, we want to solve the problemcost and safety of human travel to space. In particular, we are talking about the development of telepresence robots, since from a practical and technological point of view, they are easier and faster to create than fully-fledged autonomous robots, ”comments GITAI CEO Sho Nakanose.

The principle of operation of the system is quite simple. The operator on Earth controls the robot using a suit with sensors and a virtual reality helmet. The humanoid robot avatar in orbit performs the operator's commands in real time.

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Another video from GITAI shows how a robotperforms various actions in an environment close to the conditions of the ISS. He manages various switches, opens tool boxes and performs other minor tasks.

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Every GITAI robot that will go to the ISS,will be equipped with a 360-degree camera for streaming video to Earth. The signal delay between the robot in orbit and the operator on Earth will be about 60 milliseconds.

"However, with the management of such machines on the moonThere may be problems. Due to the large distance, the delay of the signal in one direction will be at least 1.2 seconds. That is, after each action, the operator will have about 2.5 seconds to see how the robot performed it. Therefore, we think that in this case it will be necessary to use semi-autonomous robots, ”notes Nakanose.

“We attracted to the work of PhD, who developed autonomous robots, so our research is also aimed at the active development of such machines,” added the head of GITAI.

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