Robots ain’t anything new and you have probably seen a lot of it already. Flying devices aren’t anything new either, but combine the two and you have a ‘flying brain’ which is something new. Meet Cimon- a floating ball-shaped, artificial intelligence robot designed to do a number of things. But if you wanna have one for yourself, it won’t be easy. This is specially designed for German Astronauts.
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The basketball-sized Cimon – which is a short form for Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN. Manfred Jaumann, head of microgravity payloads at Airbus described it as a “flying brain”.
A project in the works for the past two years, CIMON has been trained to recognize the voice and face of Alexander Gerst, 42, a geophysicist with the European Space Agency. When Gerst calls to CIMON, the floating robot will acoustically sense where Gerst is calling from, orient itself that way, and zoom over.
The robot is designed to guide Gerst through various science procedures, and show videos or pictures as needed. Gerst can also ask the robot questions beyond the simple procedure at hand.
All six crew members at the orbiting outpost can speak to CIMON, though it has been taught to work best with Gerst. Experts say the experiment is more than just a smartphone-type device that follows astronauts around.
CIMON is equipped with a microphone on the back, an infrared camera on the front, two batteries, and perhaps most importantly, an “offline” button. Once toggled to “offline,” Gerst can be sure nothing he is saying is streamed down to the IBM server on Earth.
Researchers say CIMON is not yet trained to respond to all possible emergencies and protocols on the space station. But they hope it will soon be able to.
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