NASA Equips Astronauts, Industry with Robotic Intelligence

However, robotic motion control requires complex technology and advances in features like robotic decision-making and object recognition. These are the challenges a Boulder, Colorado-based robotics company is teaming up with NASA to overcome. PickNik Inc. recently worked with Shaun Azimi, who leads the Dexterous Robotics team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and other agency roboticists. The team tested software that enabled a robotic arm to recognize a spacecraft hatch, then turn the latch, grasp the handle, and open the door. The arm then was able to transfer cargo bags between the hatch and a bin. The work was carried out in NASA Johnson’s new Integrated Mobile Evaluation Testbed for Robotics Operations with funding from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program. PickNik designed and refined the robotic software, called MoveIt Pro, with support from early government investments. Commercially released in 2023, MoveIt Pro has found a significant customer base. Automotive company BMW is using the software on its robotic assembly lines. A company called Lightspeed is using MoveIt Pro to program huge robotic arms that build modular “panels” for constructing affordable housing. Another company, known as Hivebotics, used MoveIt Pro to automate its flagship product, a cleaning robot. Ezra Brooks, principal software engineer at PickNik, said the 35-person compan