SBIR-STTR Award

Surface exploration of planetary environments with current robotic technologies relies heavily on human control and power-hungry active sensors to perform even the most elementary low-level functions. Ideally, a robot should be capable of autonomously exploring and interacting within an unknown environment without relying on human input or suboptimal sensors. Behaviors such as exploration of unknown environments, memorizing locations of obstacles or objects, building and updating a representation of the environment, and returning to a safe location, are all tasks that constitute typical activities efficiently performed by animals on a daily basis. Phase I of this proposal will focus on design of an adaptive robotic multi-component neural system that captures the behavior of several brain areas responsible for perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and motor behaviors. This system makes use of passive, potentially unreliable sensors (analogous to animal visual and vestibular systems) to learn while navigating unknown environments as well as build usable and correctable representations of these environments without requiring a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). In Phase I, Neurala and the Boston University Neuromorphics Lab, will construct a virtual robot, or animat, to be developed and tested in an extraterrestrial virtual environment. The animat will use passive sensors to perform a spatial exploration task. The animat will start exploring from a recharging base, autonomously plan where to go based on past exploration and its current motivation, develop and correct an internal map of the environment with the locations of obstacles, select the shortest path of return to its recharging base before battery depletion, then extract the resulting explored map into a human-readable format. In Phase II Neurala will enhance and translate the model to low-power neuromorphic hardware and collaborate with iRobot to test the model in a robotics platform.

Potential NASA Commercial Applications:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) Technology developed in this project will have a transformative impact on space exploration, and is directly relevant in supporting the key attributes of autonomy to support NASA missions, stated in the OCT roadmap for Robotics, Tele-Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TA04) as, "the ability for complex decision making, including autonomous mission execution and planning, the ability to self-adapt as the environment in which the system is operating changes, and the ability to understand system state and react accordingly." This work addresses two space technology grand challenges which aim to enable transformational space exploration and scientific discovery: all access mobility and surviving extreme space environments. Development of a biologically-inspired, robust, low-power, multi-component brain system able to perform self-localization and mapping will enable robots to autonomously navigate novel terrains without the need of GNSS. By including the ability to learn about an environment as it explores, robotic agents will be able to autonomously negotiate novel terrains and send relevant, intelligently preprocessed information back to a human controller. Lastly, incorporating high-level decision making and conflict resolution will allow the robot to decide between exploration of its environment and returning to home base for a battery recharge.

Potential NON-NASA Commercial Applications:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) One of the fundamental challenges of modern robotics is to build autonomous systems that are increasingly able to explore their environment and act upon choices in an intelligent way. The simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem exemplifies one such challenge. Currently, industry and academic solutions of the SLAM problem rely on accuracy of expensive sensors that are highly sensitive to noise and the complexity of real-world environments. These solutions are suboptimal since they require expensive, precise, and power-hungry sensors. The technology proposed herein mimics an animal's ability to solve the SLAM problem with noisy sensors and without the need of GNSS. Applications of this new technology include guidance systems for: - Robots navigating in GNSS-denied environment, such as collapsed building in disaster areas (e.g., earthquakes, nuclear power plants);- Robots for surveillance and scouting of indoor environments, such as urban war zones;- Microrobots for medical diagnosis, and - Robots for deep-ocean exploration.

Technology Taxonomy Mapping:
(NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.) Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems) Analytical Methods Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring) Circuits (including ICs; for specific applications, see e.g., Communications, Networking & Signal Transport; Control & Monitoring, Sensors) Command & Control Condition Monitoring (see also Sensors) Data Modeling (see also Testing & Evaluation) Data Processing Development Environments Intelligence Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation) Navigation & Guidance Perception/Vision Process Monitoring & Control Prototyping Relative Navigation (Interception, Docking, Formation Flying; see also Control & Monitoring; Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry) Robotics (see also Control & Monitoring; Sensors) Sequencing & Scheduling Simulation & Modeling Software Tools (Analysis, Design)

Exploration of planetary environments with current robotic technologies relies on human control and power-hungry active sensors to perform even the most elementary low-level functions. Ideally, a robot would be able to autonomously explore novel environments, memorize locations of obstacles or objects, learn about objects, build and update an environment map, and return to a safe location. All of these tasks constitute typical activities efficiently performed by animals on a daily basis. The primary objective of the proposed research is to develop a biologically-inspired neuromorphic application that will translate the above-mentioned functionalities into an autonomous robot or unmanned aerial system (UAS). The Phase I effort implemented a neuromorphic system capable of exploring an unknown environment, avoiding obstacles, and returning to base for refuel/recharge without the use of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). This system was successfully tested in a Mars-like virtual environment and a simple robot. Leveraging Phase I results, the Phase II effort will develop visual processing based on passive sensors in order to find, identify, localize and interact with objects and use this information to enhance navigation capabilities. Neurala's neuromorphic application will also allow for human guidance through an intuitive user interface. Low-power hardware will be evaluated to facilitate real-time performance in robots and unmanned platforms.

Potential NASA Commercial Applications:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) The technology will have a transformative impact on space exploration, and is directly relevant in addressing the key attributes of autonomy to support NASA missions, stated in the OCT roadmap for Robotics, Tele-Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TA04) as, "the ability for complex decision making, including autonomous mission execution and planning, the ability to self-adapt as the environment in which the system is operating changes, and the ability to understand system state and react accordingly." This work also addresses two space technology grand challenges which aim to enable transformational space exploration and scientific discovery: all access mobility and surviving extreme space environments as well as one grand challenge, telepresence in space, aimed at expanding human presence in space. NASA will be able to use this technology for autonomous exploration and mapping as well as in hostile environments in which telepresence and autonomous control will be employed.



Potential NON-NASA Commercial Applications:
:
(Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) Neurala's neuromorphic application has wide-ranging utility in robotics. It makes use of passive sensors, does not require GNSS for navigation, and incorporates training without explicit programming which taken together will reduce development costs and time while simultaneously increasing the robustness of existing robotic systems. The proposed Phase II innovation brings relevance and added benefit to the following market sectors:Defense – Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), surveillance, patrol, rescue, demining;Business – telepresence;Home – cleaning;Healthcare – remote diagnosis, assistive living; andAgriculture – autonomous seeding, crop assessment, wildlife conservation.Neurala will initially focus on a new and emerging teleoperated robots (or telepresence) market as well as the more mature and established UAS sectors. Neurala's technology enables telepresence robots, such as iRobot's RP-VITA, to learn an internal map of rooms, obstacles, and objects of interest. Neurala's solution will also provide collision- and GNSS-free navigation and control-less travel for UAS systems.

Technology Taxonomy Mapping:
(NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.) Air Transportation & Safety Algorithms/Control Software & Systems (see also Autonomous Systems) Autonomous Control (see also Control & Monitoring) Command & Control Data Acquisition (see also Sensors) Data Fusion Data Input/Output Devices (Displays, Storage) Data Modeling (see also Testing & Evaluation) Data Processing Development Environments Display Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing Image Analysis Image Capture (Stills/Motion) Image Processing Intelligence Man-Machine Interaction Models & Simulations (see also Testing & Evaluation) Navigation & Guidance Operating Systems Optical Perception/Vision Positioning (Attitude Determination, Location X-Y-Z) Prototyping Relative Navigation (Interception, Docking, Formation Flying; see also Control & Monitoring; Planetary Navigation, Tracking, & Telemetry) Robotics (see also Control & Monitoring; Sensors) Simulation & Modeling Software Tools (Analysis, Design) Telemetry (see also Control & Monitoring) Teleoperation Vehicles (see also Autonomous Systems)