Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!news.Brown.EDU!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!doctor
From: doctor@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Terry Fong)
Subject: NASA Ames Antarctica TROV Project
Message-ID: <1993Oct13.223534.9892@kronos.arc.nasa.gov>
Summary: press release describing NASA Ames telerobotics project
Keywords: telerobotics, Antarctica, NASA, virtual environments
Sender: usenet@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (usenet@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov)
Nntp-Posting-Host: tardis.arc.nasa.gov
Organization: NASA ARC/ Information Science Division
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 22:35:34 GMT
Lines: 139

Hi all,

The following is a press release describing the upcoming NASA Ames
Antarctica TROV project. I will be posting project status information
as it becomes available.

I will try and answer questions regarding the project. However, my
response time might be a bit sluggish as I am directly involved in
daily operations.

Enjoy!

Terry Fong
<terry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>

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ANTARCTIC TO BECOME LABORATORY FOR FUTURE MARS MISSIONS


     NASA scientists will spend October and November in 
Antarctica testing "telepresence technology" which may be used in 
the future to explore Mars.

     Antarctica, like Mars, has remote and hostile locations that 
are difficult for humans to explore, but can be reached by 
sophisticated robots.  "We will be able to catalog a previously 
unexplored ecology at a depth nobody has seen before," said Dr. 
Carol Stoker, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, 
Mountain View, Calif., who is the expedition leader.

     The research expedition is sponsored by the a joint NASA-
National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic Space Analog Program 
(ASAP) and funded for NASA by the Offices of Space Science and 
Advanced Concepts and Technology.

     "Both NASA and NSF have an interest in conducting scientific 
research in remote and hostile environments," said Dr. John 
Rummel, NASA's ASAP co-chairman.  "This project will enhance the 
capabilities of both agencies."

    Scientists will use a modified mini-submarine called a
Telepresence Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV), to explore 800 feet
below the surface of McMurdo Sound near Ross Island.

     Telepresence technology allows scientists on land to use head
movements to point the cameras on the underwater vehicle.  They will
steer the TROV by remote control.  This year's expedition will
concentrate on steering the TROV, not from the icy shore, but from
California.

     A second team of scientists will be able to control the TROV from
an Ames laboratory.  Scientists at Ames will steer the TROV by
computer, both directly and by linking the TROV to a "virtual reality"
underwater terrain model of Antarctica, which will be much like
steering an aircraft in a video game.  Ames laboratory scientists will
help insure that useful scientific samples are being retrieved.

     Virtual reality lets people react with a 3-D computer- generated
"world" as if it were real.  In virtual reality, people move and act
naturally within the computer environment as if they were actually
there.

     The expedition's research will yield scientific data on Antarctic
aquatic life while demonstrating the capabilities of virtual reality
in controlling remote vehicles.  The TROV is attached to a 1,000-foot
tether.  The tether consists of integrated electrical and fiber optic
cables.  The electrical cable sends power down to the TROV.

     The fiber optic cable sends digital data and video signals to the
surface, where they are combined into stereo imagery scientists can
see wearing special stereo glasses similar to sunglasses.

     "This works by alternately displaying the left and right frame
and shuttering the liquid crystal glasses in sync at a high enough
speed so that your brain integrates the left and right images together
to perceive stereo," Stoker said.

     To produce stereo imagery, two cameras are mounted on a "pan and
tilt platform" on the front of the TROV.  Motors on the platform allow
the cameras to pan left or right or tilt up and down.

     Stereo video images will be transmitted to Ames via satellite
along with position information from the TROV's navigation system.
Computers will process this information to create a three-dimensional
virtual reality model of the sea bottom.

     NSF-sponsored scientist James Barry, a researcher for the
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, will use the TROV to plot
how the dominant bottom-dwelling lifeforms change from shallow to deep
water in McMurdo Sound, giving a picture of the underwater community.
Barry is the Chief Scientist for the expedition.

     In addition to the stereo camera system, the TROV also has a
manipulator arm to collect biological samples from the icy depths of
the Antarctic Sea.  "This will enable samples to be collected in
Antarctica by scientists who never leave California," said Rummel.

     James McClintock of the University of Alabama will use the arm to
collect bottom-dwellers such as bryozoans (small colonial animals) and
deepwater sponges to use in studies of how these organisms use
chemical defenses.  Using the manipulator arm in an actual study will
help test its practicality for use in Antarctic science.  His work
also is supported by NSF.

     The improved depth perception afforded by stereo vision will
enable scientists to effectively manipulate the TROV's robotic arm.
Extending from the front of the TROV, the two-foot-long metal robotic
arm has a claw to grip with.  Although the arm has no lateral
movement, it can flex, rotate and grasp small objects.

     "It's unbelievable how much difference depth perception makes
when you try to pick things up," Stoker said.  "Without stereo vision,
you just don't have a sense of where things are."

     In addition to Stoker, the NASA Ames Antarctic expedition team
includes exobiologist Dale Andersen and engineers Don Barch, Jay
Steele and Roxanne Streeter.  Team members remaining at Ames are
Butler Hine, Terry Fong and Darryl Rasmussen.  NASA team members will
work closely with the two scientists sponsored by the NSF.

     Last October, NASA and NSF conducted their first ASAP joint
research project in ice-covered Lake Hoare, Antarctica.  There they
studied telepresence, exobiology and tested a solar power system built
by NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland.  NSF's Office of Polar
Programs is now using the solar power system in an Antarctic field
camp.

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-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Well, if you can't believe what you    Terry Fong <terry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
 read in a comic book, what can you     NASA-AMES M/S 269-3, Moffett Field, CA
 believe?" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose           (415) 604-6063 office, 604-6081 lab
