Astronaut Smart Glove: A Human-Machine Interface For the Exploration of the Moon, Mars, and Beyond

Astronauts exploring the Moon, Mars and beyond will be assisted by robotic systems to render their work more efficient, productive, and safe. Among these, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones (airplanes, rotorcraft, or gas thrustered flyers), hold great promise, as they may assist astronauts in a wide range of science and exploration activities. UAV operations, however, are presently demanding tasks. Conventional drone interfaces require significant dexterity and situational awareness to enable subtle and rapid real-time control inputs. Such interfacing would be inadequate if the drone operator were wearing a pressurized spacesuit, as the latter fundamentally limits an astronaut’s ability to perceive and interact with the extra-vehicular environment. During the 2019 campaign of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) on Devon Island, High Arctic, an established Moon and Mars analog field research site, a novel concept for a wireless human-machine interface (HMI) called “Astronaut Smart Glove”(ASG) was field-tested in partially simulated, unpressurized astronaut extra-vehicular activity (EVA). The ASG, along with its compact in-suit augmented reality (AR) head-mounted display (HMD), were evaluated for their potential adequacy in allowing UAVs to be operated by a suited astronaut. The ASG showed promise in being able to address both the dexterity and situational awareness limitations of spacesuits by allowing an astronaut to operate single-handedly, within conservative work envelopes for EVA hand operations, a UAV via low amplitude, intuitive gestures of one hand, and in head-up mode via direct visual contact with the UAV and/or in First Person View (FPV) using the AR display. While the ASG offers the prospect of enabling a wide range of robotic operations in future human exploration, further studies are needed to understand better the system’s potential limitations, in particular higher fidelity tests using a pressurized suit, and field demonstrations of end-to-end EVA surface science and exploration operations.