For some months we have known that in NASA They were working with different private companies and public research centers in the development of a kind of autonomous robot equipped with artificial intelligence that was capable of taking care of as many tasks as possible on a daily basis, especially the most repetitive ones, which must be carried out on a daily basis. perform the human personnel that is in the station.
As you are surely thinking, thanks to the fact that this robot, or if the program was developed correctly and its implementation is more than interesting, there could be several units, taking charge of this kind of tasks will allow the astronauts to free themselves and thus have much more time to dedicate to the different experiments and tests that are carried out daily on the International Space Station.
This end, in itself, would constitute the ideal of a project like this, unfortunately the truth is that there is still much development ahead and the technology available to humans today is perhaps not so advanced as to develop a humanoid capable of performing all these types of tasks in a completely autonomous way and living together with astronauts. Due to this and keeping in mind how delicate some may arise 'problem'the project will take its first step with a assistant robot that can offer much more than we imagine.
Airbus has been the company in charge of designing and manufacturing CIMON
Going into a little more detail, as it has been officially revealed, we are talking about a new strange-looking robot that has been baptized with the name of Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, in Spanish it would be something like an interactive mobile companion for the crew. Because the name is perhaps too long, its creators do not hesitate to refer to this robot as CIMON.
As you can see in the photos, we are talking about a robot that, contrary to what you can imagine, is basically a floating head equipped with artificial intelligence. Personally, I have to confess that its design has caught my attention, especially if we take into account that the different companies involved in its development, assure that CIMON will be able to help astronauts in the different tasks.
According to its developers, we are basically talking about a product designed and manufactured by Airbus and endowed with Watson's artificial intelligence IBM, CIMON has the medicine ball size or with a weight of about 5 kilograms. To manufacture its metal and plastic body, different 3D printing techniques have been used while, as a front, we find a screen where interactive responses and even 'emotions' will be shown.
At the moment CIMON will work exclusively with the German astronaut Alexander Gerst
To understand a little better the history of CIMON, tell you that its development began back in 2016. The original idea to carry out this project was for the robot itself to work with a specific astronaut, the German Alexander Gerst. For this, a new iteration of the well-known IBM artificial intelligence was designed so that it was able to recognize Gerst's voice.
When the time comes, about two years after the project started, Gerst is ready to return to the International Space Station in a short time and as baggage, he will take CIMON with him to work with him on experiments involving crystals, Rubik's cubes, and even the field of medicine. According to which experiments, the basic work of CIMON will be to serve as a kind of floating intelligent camera.
Although the end of this type of experiment is something else different and much more advanced, the truth is that, as assured by Airbus, this is the first time that an assisted flight system and artificial intelligence can get to work on the International Space Station with the different astronauts. It is precisely because of this that something as simple as the fact that CIMON's functions will be limited during its first mission.
Further information: Popular Mechanics