RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

The Artificial Intelligence and Information Sciences Office of the Research and Engineering Directorate at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) has as its basic responsibility the function of "consulting through research," that is, matching technology in universities, industry, and other NASA centers to space station applications. This requires staying abreast of the state of the art by conducting technology development and applications research in knowledge-based systems, machine vision, and robotics. A significant contribution of the AI office is the support of space station system engineering and integration (SE&I) activities. The AI office was formed in October 1984 and currently has a staff of twelve civil service personnel. Facilities include a Symbolics 3600 and a Symbolics 3670; a VAX 11/780 operating under ULTRIX (a Unix lookalike); and a robotics laboratory with a multiple-arm mobile robot, vision sensors, and mock-ups for simulating satellite servicing.