‘Cimon’ the Robot Astronaut

Summary: German Space Agency Sends AI Robot to International Space Station

Videos: https://www.space.com/42574-ai-robot-cimon-space-station-experiment.html https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/smart/de-de/ai-in-space/index.html

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Germany’s space agency DLR has sent an artificially intelligent robot to the International Space Station (ISS) to help astronauts orbiting the Earth. CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), has an animated face and is designed to help astronauts with tasks on the ISS.

CIMON arrived at the station on July 2, 2018 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bringing with it crucial supplies for the ISS astronauts. It weighs 5kg on Earth but in zero gravity, it floats around the station using 14 internal fans.

CIMON was created by the German Aerospace Center, in collaboration with Airbus and IBM and the European Space Agency. One of its key objectives is to test how robots and astronauts can collaborate in this environment so that further advancements can be made in the future.

CIMON will work with Alexander Gerst, the German astronaut and to do so, it is able to display procedures or offer solutions to problems using its ‘neural’ AI network connected to the IBM cloud that constantly streams data to Frankfurt, enabling it to learn. For example, if CIMON is asked a question or addressed, the Watson AI it is fitted with firstly converts this audio signal into text, which is understood, or interpreted, by the AI. IBM Watson not only understands content in context, but it can also understand the intention behind it.

CIMON is also equipped with microphones and cameras that will help it recognise Gerst. However, at Gerst’s request, it has an off button should they want complete privacy allowing him to temporarily stop any data from leaving the space station.

“CIMON is the first AI-based mission and flight assistance system,” said Manfred Jaumann, head of microgravity payloads at Airbus. “Our main mission is to support the astronauts with their daily tasks to save time, because time is the most valuable and most expensive thing on the ISS,” said IBM engineer Matthias Biniok.

According to Airbus, CIMON has three big main objectives during its time on the ISS. To guide Gerst through a crystal-growth experiment, to look at a Rubik's cube through its camera and give Gerst instructions for how to solve it and finally, to record and assist Gerst while he performs a complex medical experiment.

"Experiments sometimes consist of more than 100 different steps," said Matthias Biniok, the lead Watson architect in Germany in an IBM blog post. "CIMON knows them all — so astronauts shouldn't have to worry as much about missing a step.”

In addition to helping with experiments, CIMON is equipped with sensors that can alert astronauts to dangerous conditions when they're not near a computer console.

Developers have also attempted to give it some personality by programming it to make small talk. For example, it says, "I come from Friedrichshafen at the lake of Constance. It's a nice place,". But when Gerst asks CIMON to stop playing his favourite song, Man Machine by Kraftwerk, it gets defensive.

Marco Trovatello, a spokesman of the European Space Agency's Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany says CIMON is designed to test what future human-robot interaction in space might look like, saying "CIMON is a technology demonstration of what a future AI-based assistant on the International Space Station or on a future, longer-term exploration mission would look like.”

During its first Space mission in 2018, CIMON was equipped with only a selected range of capabilities, but in the medium term, aerospace researchers also plan to use CIMON to examine group effects that can develop over a long period of time in small teams and that may arise during long-term missions to the Moon or Mars. This is because scientists believe that social interaction between astronauts and assistance systems equipped with emotional intelligence, could play an important role in the success of long-term missions. In addition, this project could lead to important findings that allow the transfer of technology into applications here on earth. For example, Airbus’ developers believe that the assistance system could also find future use in hospitals and social care.

Gerst returned to the Earth in December 2018 and his successor, the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, will continue with further experiments with CIMON during his 2019 mission.