Yevgeniy Dudorov, the Executive Director of NPO “Androidnaya Tekhnika”, one of the creators of Fedor the robot, has told “The New Defence Order. Strategy” magazine about the project that has been talked so much about lately. The talk took place shortly before the space launch of Skybot F-850.
The robot had attended the International Space Station. It had been carried to the orbit by the Souyuz MS-14 spacecraft. Fedor had taken part in the experiments and returned to the Earth.
– Yevgeniy, first of all, let’s make it clear what is the right name for the robot now? “Fedor” as we’re used to calling it or Skybot F-850? Why has the name been changed if you don't mind my asking?
– The name “Fedor” was given to the robot during the works as part of the “Salvager” project of the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, and literally it meant the “final experimental demonstration object research – Fedor”. This name became natural, and now we’ve got used to it, in certain cases it’s used as a common noun. Speaking about other robots, often we refer to them as the “robot of Fedor family”.
As far as the name Skybot F-850 is concerned, it’s the name specially intended for the space mission. Our Fedor has got its own call signal like every astronaut does.
– The work on Fedor the robot has been in progress pretty long. Was the idea of launching the android in the space born later, or was it in the initial technical design assignment for the salvage robot? If later, did you have to introduce a lot of modifications to its design to make such flight possible?
– The idea of launching the android robot in the space came up as long as about ten years ago, or even longer. Though, at first, while working over the “Salvager” project we didn’t reckon using the demo model (as Fedor was first called) in space missions. As part of the project, we were developing the technologies that could have been enhanced and used within the next dozens of years for solution of emergency response tasks with minimum risk for a human being.
Unfortunately, the Emergency Situations Ministry proved to be not ready for considering and developing the applicability of the anthropomorphic robot technologies in the nearest future. Then we started to study the alternative ways of applying our technologies and found two promising areas: space and nuclear industries. Finally, we offered outcomes of the “Salvager” project to two authorities: Rosatom (Federal State Unitary Enterprise “RosRAO”) and Roscosmos (PAO RSC Energia).
Since Fedor had not been meant to work in space conditions at first, we had to improve it significantly so that it meets the minimum requirements of the effective standards for the research equipment sent to the orbit.
– Please tell how was the robot controlled? – Was it able to work autonomously, without operator’s intervening? – Could the astronauts control the robot from the station?
– To ensure safety during the experiments, the robot was controlled in avatar mode by means of a copy-type driver unit, which is connected to a laptop via USB. The control system was running on the laptop to transmit the control to the robot via Ethernet. The robot and copy-type driver unit were on the International Space Station.
– Why was it the humanoid form factor, with arms and legs, that was selected?
– Both when on earth and in space, a human being uses his or her arms to do different jobs, such as repair or maintenance of the equipment, cooking and eating, carrying out experiments, transportation of objects and many others. It is important for the human being to sense these actions, to feel the weight, the volume, the surface pattern of objects.
Therefore, conditions of robot control shall be as close as possible to real feelings that a human being experiences when doing the same job, which is almost impossible when a joystick is used. That is why we use a special suit.
– What is the Fedor control panel like? Is it possible to control Fedor from a regular tablet or a PC? Is someone who hasn’t got special training able to learn to control the robot?
– The robot control panel is in fact a hard exoskeleton that contains mechanical framework elements, sensors, hinge joints, motors, plastic elements, head-mounted display. The suit allows adjusting to fit an operator and copying operator’s movements very precisely during control of the robot. Also the robot may be controlled from a laptop, and a joystick, which is however less natural and does not allow high precision.
– Which was the most sophisticated technical job Fedor had to do aboard the International Space Station.
– The most sophisticated technical job is to transport the robot from Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft to the International Space Station and back. Numerous factors had to be taken into account and astronauts’ movements coordinated. Any other difficulties were not encountered.
– How soon will avatar robots become equal colleagues of astronauts on board the orbital station and in other space missions? What is lacking to make it real right now?
– This is only a single type of possible robot systems. A huge amount of space jobs can be done by robot systems at present time. And, in fact, this is us who deter completion of these tasks for the most part. If scientific goals are properly outlined, sources of financing are determined, cooperations for achieving these goals are assembled, within next 5-10 years Russia will be able to take a leading position in space-related robot systems technologies.
And in the end, I’d like to emphasize that robot systems need unbundling to make a separate industry, whereas now it’s “smeared” over several ministries and doesn’t find proper consideration in any of them. While these are robot systems (not only space-related ones) that will contribute to vast majority of technologies and products used in everyday life widely and successfully.
Interviewer – Mikhail Kotov
Photo courtesy of NPO “Androidnaya Tekhnika”
© “The New Defence Order. Strategies”
No. 5 (58) 2019.
