HOUSTON | Virtual Planetary Exploration
Awards & Nominations
HOUSTON has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Virtual Planetary Exploration
New sense for space exploration, HapStellar!
Summary
We designed a haptic pen, HapStellar to take space exploration one step further. Astronauts can collect data of the surface just by rubbing the HapStellar over the surface. The data consists of haptic properties of surface such as pressure, friction and frequency. HapStaller consists of four main components: reflective infrared sensor, camera, force sensing resistor, and accelerometer. Those components provide us collecting high accuracy haptic data. The data can be used in various research areas such as simulating planetary surface feelings in laboratories or creating an excellent mixed reality experience for researchers working on space missions.
How We Addressed This Challenge
Humankind has been exploring space for decades with only one sense: sight. Our project addresses the problem of being touch-blind in planetary surface explorations. We fixed the problem by utilizing an existing technology, haptic. Our product, HapStellar Pen gives sense of touch in space to humanity on a plate. As a specie that dreams colonization on other planets, it is essential to acquire every bit of information for exploring planetary surfaces. We hope to achieve get researchers not only see the universe but also have tactile information of it, like how we have in the Earth.
How We Developed This Project
We first wondered how it would feel touching Mars surface. When we think about the problem, first we came up with an idea that improves astronaut gloves by adding another layer to gloves which are already bulky due to many layers. It was already a problem for astronauts moving freely with the gloves. Instead of an idea that is only futuristic, we also wanted to make it applicable to existing technologies and research. As we are developing our project we used haptic technology to provide surface tactile data, solid works and solid edge to produce 3D models, JavaScript to embed out work to our website.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We use data and planetary surface samples provided by NASA to test accuracy of device we developed, HapStellar. As investigating datasets from NASA we have noticed that exploration devices and equipment were inadequate for acquiring enough data to be used in research activities from labs on Earth . Thus we noticed that we can improve those datasets by adding tactile information.
Data & Resources
- NASA RATS (RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES)
- CATALOG OF APOLLO
- LUNAR SURFACE GEOLOGICAL SAMPLING TOOLS AND CONTAINERS
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2380464_Haptic_Rendering_in_Virtual_Environments
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6787087/figures#figures DOI: 10.1109/TOH.2014.2316797
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7177716 DOI: 10.1109/WHC.2015.7177716
- https://zeus.lmt.ei.tum.de/downloads/texture/#faq