Enabling NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration through Human-Centered Intelligent Systems
0Over the past few months, NASA has been in the news numerous times both for the exciting discoveries of the pair of Mars Rovers as well as the country's Vision for Space Exploration. This vision focuses on the joint human and robotic exploration of the solar system starting with a return to the moon and then the human exploration of Mars. In addition, the vision includes a continued array of exciting robotic missions to Mars as well as other destinations. To accomplish these missions, NASA requires a diverse range of technologies that will allow us to develop smarter and more adaptive systems that work collaboratively with humans to achieve the mission objectives. In this talk, Dr. Clancy will give an broad overview of the key technical challenges that must be addressed to accomplish this vision and focus on technologies that have been under development at NASA to accomplish this goal. The talk will discuss basic research which is on-going today as well as robust demonstrations and deployments of intelligent systems technology. Topics presented will include discussion of advanced planning and scheduling and collaboration tools currently used as part of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, field trials of an agent architecture designed to enable a close partnership of humans with robots, control of devices by detecting EEG and EMG signals and intelligent robotics. While these technologies have been focused on critical NASA needs, many of them also have application within commercial domains. Following the talk, Dr. Clancy will be around to discuss any areas of mutual interest between Microsoft Research and NASA's future exploration plans.