My name is Sandeep Yayathi,
and I'm a robotics engineer
at NASA Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas.
This is Robonaut 2.
He's a very friendly robot
to work around.
Robonaut 2 is a humanoid robot
that we developed
to assist astronauts in space
on various different types
of tasks,
and eventually we'd like to see
this robot going EVA,
which is outside, in space.
Perhaps if we're exploring
another surface,
like the Moon or Mars
or an asteroid,
you can send a robot
like Robonaut
out ahead of an astronaut
to maybe kind of assess
the situation,
or go into an area that may be
sort of questionable for safety
and too dangerous
for a crew member.
He's both able to have
the dexterity of a human
but also has a lot of strength.
Robonaut 2 has the armspan
of Yao Ming
and biceps of Arnold
Schwarzenegger in his prime,
but the difference is,
Schwarzenegger can't hold
this weight out
at full arm's length
indefinitely.
So we studied the human anatomy
and the hands
and used that as a jumping point
for designing
this robotic system.
That was one of the biggest
challenges of this robot.
So the robot likes to show off
his guns from time to time.
About the same as a human being.
(laughs)
There's all kinds of science
fiction movies and things
that, you know,
all of us grew up watching
and kind of inspired us,
and the idea was to make
this robot able to use
the same types of tools
and interfaces
that were designed already
for the astronaut crew members
to use aboard the space station
and with
the space shuttle program.
The natural thing to do was
to gravitate towards
human-type design.
So this is actually
a Robonaut 2 forearm
without all of the shells
and skins on it
so you can see all the actuators
and the hands moving.
We actually use tendons,
what we call tendons,
similar to human tendons,
in order to allow it to move
like a human hand.
And because it doesn't have
skin and nerves like we do,
we developed sensors
so that the robot
can actually sort of feel
what it's grabbing onto.
The robot's vision system
is cameras in its head
to kind of replicate your eyes.
We're trying to sort of mimic
a little bit of human biology,
but with electronics.
(power drill whirring)
His brain's actually
in his chest.
That's where the computer is
that does most of computation.
There are a lot of different
tasks inside the space station
that may seem very simple
and mundane,
but the International Space
Station is kind of like a home:
like, you have to do
maintenance on it,
you have to clean filters,
and these are things that
the robot could be doing
without the crew around
eventually
and allowing them to focus on
complicated science experiments
to benefit research going on
on the ground.
I guess as a kid,
you always think about NASA,
exploring space as being
so up there, so far out
that maybe it's not really
a reachable goal,
kind of like you might think,
"I could never be like
a Hollywood movie star"
sort of thing.
And all of a sudden,
a switch flipped that, you know,
NASA's like being at another
company or anywhere else
except for the fact that it's
got all these awesome goals.
The best part of my job is that
we get to see
the entire design process,
so I go from being at a desk
doing design work on a computer
to assembling things
on a workbench right behind me
and then testing those things,
making sure they work.
Going from being a kid, fooling
around with stuff at home,
all the way to now, you know,
working here, this is my job,
it's pretty incredible.
I would have never
really thought
that I would end up here,
but it's just a matter
of learning the right skills
and following your dream.
