Astronaut assistance system for the International Space Station
Virtual assistants support people on Earth and astronauts on the International Space Station ISS. The Crew Interactive MObile companioN (CIMON) is an intelligent floating astronaut assistant equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). CIMON is able to see, hear, understand and speak. Cameras and software for facial recognition, orientation and video documentation serve as its ‘eyes’. Ultrasonic sensors measure distances for collision avoidance. Its ‘ears’ are several microphones used to determine the direction of sound sources plus a directional microphone for speech recognition. Twelve internal fans allow CIMON to move and rotate freely in all directions in microgravity. This means it can follow the astronauts during their various tasks and can also nod or shake its head. It is spherical, has a diameter of 32 centimetres and weighs five kilograms.
CIMON is modelled after Professor Simon Wright in the 1980s animated series ‘Captain Future’ – a ‘flying brain’ with sensors, cameras and a speech processor. Almost 40 years later, the smart assistant enables astronauts like Alexander Gerst, Luca Parmitano and Matthias Maurer to keep both hands free, because the manual operation of a computer is no longer necessary. With fully voice-controlled access to documents and media, the astronaut can ‘comfortably’ navigate through instructions, repair manuals and procedures for experiments and equipment. CIMON thus serves as a complex database with all the necessary information for work on the ISS and can simultaneously be used as a mobile camera for documentation purposes. But CIMON not only helps on the ISS. On Earth, it is intended to drive innovations in robotic industrial production, education, medicine and healthcare.
Airbus was commissioned to develop CIMON for use on the ISS by the German Space Agency at DLR with funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. It is equipped with Watson AI technology from IBM. The human aspects were co-developed by researchers from the clinical centre at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (LMU). CIMON was first used on the ISS by the German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst.
Link:
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Dr. Christian Rogon · Email Christian.Rogon@dlr.de
CIMON-2 on the International Space Station (ISS) – CIMON-2 in action with ESA’s Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano on the International Space Station (ISS). Image credit: ESA/DLR/NASA