3.2 Participating Organizations

Technical elements of the Telerobotics Program are conducted at NASA field centers, universities, industry sites, and private research centers. As previously noted, managerial activities for the program are conducted by internal and external NASA committees and working groups. The membership of the Telerobotics Intercenter Working Group is composed of designated representatives of selected participating organizations. These organizations are listed below:

Managerial Participants:

OSS The Office of Space Science is responsible for the overall organization and evolution of the crosscutting NASA space research and advanced technology programs, and is the NASA organizational element in which the baseline Telerobotics Program exists.

OSF The Office of Space Flight is responsible for the advanced development of robotics technology for application to the Internaional Space Station and other on-orbit platforms. In particular, the robotics efforts of the OSF are associated with the implementation of advanced capabilities for the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator for ISS.

TRIWG The Telerobotics Intercenter Working Group consists of one representative from each participating NASA field center, and meets four times a year to provide technical consultation and guidance for the program. The TRIWG performs detailed technical reviews of the ongoing technology and application tasks, and provides feedback to the responsible individuals for that task.

Technical Participants:

ARC The NASA Ames Research Center, within the Telerobotics Program, investigates and demonstrates computational architectures for NASA telerobotics activities. A primary focus is the development and application of telepresence and virtual reality techniques for operator interfaces to complex mechanisms. In addition to the development of these techniques, scientific field trials of prototype operator interfaces have been conducted to demonstrate their use in near-term NASA missions.

Sponsored organizations:

Stanford University

JSC Efforts at the Johnson Space Center are focussed on the development of advanced teleoperations and robotics technologies and applying those technologies to Earth-orbiting systems such as the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. This effort includes both attached manipulators, such as the STS Remote Manipulator System, as well as proposed free-flying robots such as AERcam.

Sponsored organizations:

Lockheed Engineering and Science

University of Texas at Austin

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the lead center for the Telerobotics Program, and is responsible for the fundamental research and technology development efforts of the program. JPL has responsibilities in each of the technology development areas of the program, including planetary rovers, robotics, supervisory control, teleoperations, and terrestrial robotics, as well as being responsible for coordinating with the TRIWG on the timely development of the advanced telerobotics technologies and applications demonstrations undertaken by the program participants. In addition, JPL is the primary applications development center for planetary surface systems, with a central focus on Mars rover development.

Sponsored organizations:

University of Southern California

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

CMU The Telerobotics Program sponsors research grants at Carnegie-Mellon University which conducts research in mobile robotics and the application of these systems to Lunar surface operations. The CMU program develops and implements prototype autonomous robots which are capable of navigating through rugged, uncertain terrains in extreme environments, through the utilization of innovative locomotion architectures, robust robotic perception systems, advanced planning technologies, and efficient systems-level engineering. The products of this activity are field tested in environments as varied as abandoned slag piles, coal mines, and polar volcanoes.

UMd The Telerobotics Program sponsors research at the University of Maryland in the application of telerobotics systems to space operations. The research examines the efficiency deltas imparted by the use of telerobots in stand-alone applications, in tasks designed for EVA astronauts, and tasks performed in conjunction with EVA astronaut capabilities. This space systems research is conducted in neutral buoyancy environments to maximize the similarity to actual space operations.