NASA - Robonaut Shows Sensitive Side

File this under: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." NASA was having trouble with electrical 'noise' and excess cable requirements in old robotic systems, so rather than keep banging its head against those problems, it switched over to fiber optic sensing. Voila. I love a good end run.

...When the Robonaut was on the drawing board at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, developers needed advanced sensors to measure the movements of the human-like hands and forearms they were designing. These "hands" had to be capable of exerting just the right amount of force and control to perform critical jobs. They needed to mirror the skillfulness of a human hand.

For example, when a person reaches out, picks up a foam cup filled with coffee and lifts it to drink, the hand responds automatically. The fingers close around the cup with the right amount of grip to pick it up without crushing the cup or dropping it. To simulate this kind of control in the hands of the Robonaut, Astro Technology Inc. in Houston developed the Fiber-Optic Sensor System.

This system design overcomes some of the limitations of older robotic methods that were more cumbersome. The new fiber-optic sensors use a light source, so they are immune to electrical "noise" and require significantly less cabling to measure the bending of the "fingers" and force of the touch. Add to this the reduced size and weight of the components, and they are ideal for space flight and operation.

This not only is great news for Robonaut, but these NASA-inspired innovations are also paving the way for some important commercial uses for the fiber-optic sensors....