NASA - Marshall Space Flight Center Robotics Academy

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Project Description

Marshall Space Flight Center Robotics Academy

[Students Higher Education]
[Available: Nationally]

The NASA Robotics Internship Program is a 10-week resident summer internship for students specifically interested in robotics. Students are given priority who have previously participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition or, Botball, or who have taken active interest in robotics in demonstrable ways. Participants are assigned to a team project sponsored by NASA/MSFC, local industry, or academic institution. Two to three students are assigned per project. In addition to direct guidance from the Principal Investigator who sponsored the project, an advanced robotic student is assigned as team lead to guide interns and manage the project on a daily basis. The interns and team leads participate in enriching activities such as a group project, lectures, field trips, and meetings with leaders in the field of robotics. Students with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation services.

Eligibility:
Interns must be rising college freshmen or sophomores, with a GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, they should have experience in robotics; they must be U.S. citizens or, permanent residents as of May of the program year.

Team Leads:
Team leads are advanced undergraduate or graduate students with a curricular background in robotics.

Research Projects:
1. Surface Mobility Systems -- The Surface Mobility Systems project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is focused on the identification and development of key technologies for future surface mobility systems used for planetary exploration. This research addresses infrastructure and systems engineering issues that will be required to implement surface mobility technology and to systematically expand these systems. The current technology test bed includes four pathfinder-class mobility platforms and one LRV-class system. On-going research has focused on coordinated control, sensor-based automation, communications, navigation, hazard avoidance, data collection, interpretation and display.

2. Automatic Rendezvous and Docking -- This research involves the determination of methods/techniques that will provide position and orientation information for an autonomous, three-degree-of-freedom spacecraft simulator (air sled) with respect to a stationary target. The team will select, implement, test and optimize the methods/techniques chosen. The research includes optimization of the visual sensor location on the air sled as well as the target configuration/orientation with respect to the air sled. Autonomous control of the air sled will be tested in the Flight Robotics Laboratory.

3. Return to the Moon -- This project, a partnership between the University of Alabama in Huntsville and MSFC, focuses on navigation, hazard avoidance, object manipulation, and localization of an autonomous robot on a lunar terrain. Infrared beacons will be available as navigation aids and the robot's mission will be to locate, retrieve, and transport specially identified objects to a base station. The research includes study of a variety of navigation systems, including beacon-, stellar- and GPS-based solutions. The research project includes some physical construction, sensor development, computer programming, and actuator development. The autonomously navigated robot will be tested on a lunar- terrain playing field that is equipped with navigation beacons.

Duration: 10 weeks

Dates: June 2 through Aug. 8, 2008

Location: Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

Application Deadline: Due dates are established at http://university.gsfc.nasa.gov/application/.

Who to Contact at NASA
Alan Chow, Ph.D.
NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Academic Affairs Office
Mail Code HS30
Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812
Phone: (256) 544-7107
Fax: (256) 961-1521
E-mail: alan.chow@nasa.gov

Additional Information
+ Robotics Academy

Additional Contact Information
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Marshall Space Flight Center Robotics Academy