Airbus 12/5/2019
Human-machine interaction and artificial intelligence in space New technology demonstrator with improved ‘sense of direction’ and ‘empathy’A new CIMON for the International Space Station (ISS): CIMON-2 (Crew Interactive MObile companioN) lifted off on its journey into space on 5 December 2019. This modified version of the astronaut assistant has been equipped for new tasks and was developed and built in Germany. Like its predecessor, CIMON-2 will be deployed in the Columbus European research module. CIMON is a free-flying, spherical technology demonstrator for human-machine interaction and features artificial intelligence.
“CIMON-1 – our prototype – landed back on Earth on 27 August 2019 after spending 14 months on the ISS, and has now arrived at Airbus in Friedrichshafen,†says Dr Christian Karrasch, CIMON Project Manager at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Space Administration in Bonn. The technology experiment was developed and built by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Bremen on behalf of the Space Administration and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie). The demonstrator’s artificial intelligence is based on IBM’s Watson technology, with medical experts from the Ludwig-Maximilian University Hospital in Munich (Klinikum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, LMU) responsible for scientific issues. On 15 November 2018, CIMON-1 became the world’s first AI to be deployed on the ISS, working with German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst.
“We want to use CIMON-2 to build on the successful demonstration with CIMON,†says Christian Karrasch. During its debut the first CIMON impressively demonstrated that an AI-based mobile application can function on the ISS, working together with Alexander Gerst for 90 minutes.
More:
https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2019/12/astronaut-assistant-cimon2-is-on-its-way-to-the-international-space-station.html
