As oil platforms and space habitats move toward unmanned operations, robots must be able to handle real-world tasks—like opening doors. This project developed robotic systems that can interact with human-designed environments, helping reduce the need for human presence in dangerous or remote locations.
Project Significance & Impact
Unmanned oil platforms and future space habitats need robots that can do more than just observe—they need to act. This project focused on giving robots the ability to perform physical tasks like opening doors and navigating tight spaces, making them more useful in environments built for humans.
By improving robotic dexterity and autonomy, this research helps reduce the need for risky human visits to offshore platforms and supports NASA’s goals for maintaining space habitats. It’s a step toward safer, more efficient operations in both energy and space industries.
Project Outcomes
Project Details
Normally-unmanned installations (NUIs) had become more prevalent throughout the oil and gas industry. These installations sought to decrease risk and cost to oil and gas companies by removing humans from routine yet dangerous operational environments. However, in practice, humans were required to visit and maintain these NUIs much more often than desired. Robotic assets deployed on these platforms could have mitigated this risk and cost by managing tasks that required physical interaction, thereby reducing the need for direct human intervention. At the same time, many existing platforms could not be retrofitted to operate as NUIs. Dexterous robots that could operate in human-engineered environments would have allowed for the conversion of these existing platforms, greatly expanding the benefits of NUI operations across the industry.
Separate from this industry need, NASA was planning beyond-Earth orbit missions involving human habitats that would remain unmanned for the majority of their operational lives. NASA sought to understand how robots could assist in maintaining these habitats prior to, and following, crew missions. NASA awarded Northeastern University a Valkyrie humanoid robot for work in their Robotics and Intelligent Vehicles Research Laboratory. SSI collaborated with the principal investigators, Professors Taskin Padir and Robert Platt of Northeastern University, with the objective of facilitating a testing opportunity for the SmartTouch integration with their Valkyrie robot.
It was recognized that robots would not be completely autonomous in the near future and therefore would not eliminate all human support of NUIs. However, baseline autonomous skills that allowed remote robots to perceive their environment and manipulate objects within that environment significantly enhanced the ability to perform highly complex tasks without a physical human presence at remote installations. Improved manipulation for fine, dexterous tasks—including soft robotics and drones—and advanced perception to decrease the need for real-time human intervention facilitated a more timely integration of robots into existing platform operations, while improving the survivability of unmanned space-based habitats. SSI was exploring collaboration opportunities with local energy companies and other governmental agencies in similar technology areas. If these partnerships came to fruition, the work proposed here would have leveraged this synergy to demonstrate even further advanced capabilities.
