NASA JSC Unveils 'Valkyrie' DRC Robot

Humanoid Robots: It's a She

NASA JSC Unveils 'Valkyrie' DRC Robot

IEEE Spectrum

Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum

After negotiating a maze of dimly lit, narrow passages and a series of locked doors, we emerged into a room the approximate size of an IMAX theater, where NASA JSC team leader Nicolaus Radford introduced us to this:

Valkyrie has to be capable of operating in the same spaces that a person would operate in, under the control of humans who have only minimal training with robots, which is why the robot's design is based on a human form. The overall goal of the DRC is to help drive innovation towards robots that are able to take over from humans directly, without needing any special accommodations. In that context, a human form makes sense because we're humans, and these robots will be doing the jobs that we don't want to be doing because they're too dangerous.

Valkyrie is equipped with a staggering amount of sensors, cameras and LIDAR in the head, more cameras and sonar in the abdomen, and yet more cameras in the forearms, knees, and feet. All of these data won't be transmitted back to Valkyrie's operators all at once, but being able to take advantage of whatever sensor is most relevant to the robot's current task should help Valkyrie be fast and efficient, whether it's being teleoperated or functioning more ....

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