Evaluation of the Biosleeve Gesture Control Interface for Telerobotics in Microgravity

For future missions with human-robot teams, the NASA Space Technology Roadmap highlights challenges in human-robot interfaces for dexterous telerobotic control, gesture control of robotic assistants, and telesupervision. To help address these challenges, JPL is developing a sleeve-based gesture recognition interface that could be embedded and worn in IVA and EVA suits. The JPL BioSleeve incorporates electromyography sensors (to measure muscle activity), inertial sensors (IMUs), and magnetic field sensors, to provide intuitive force and position control signals from natural arm, hand, and finger movements. Parabolic flight demonstrations in 2017 aimed to evaluate effects of the microgravity environment on gesture recognition performance, compared to performance in ground tests, after training both on the ground and during flight. Researchers also planned to demonstrate the BioSleeve’s interface utility in the microgravity environment by performing a gesture control/manipulation task.