Summer 2011 - University of Massachusetts Lowell

Classnotes
A L U M N I L I F E
u CLOSE-UP CLASS OF 2010
SPHERES robots float freely inside the
International Space Station during a test
in October 2008. Looking on from left are
astronaut Michael Fincke and American
space tourist Richard Garriott.
ALUMNUS WORKS ON NASA PROJECT
Smartphones can produce driving directions,
make restaurant reservations, take photos
— and, apparently, control robots in space.
The last is thanks, in part, to Mark Micire,
who received his doctorate in Computer
Science from UMass Lowell last year.
Micire is working on a NASA project to
control a trio of small free-flying robots
aboard the International Space Station
(ISS) using Android smartphones.
Micire joined Carnegie Mellon University
as a research scientist after graduation
and is currently working with the Intelligent Robotics Group at
NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
The volleyball-size robots — called Synchronized Position Hold,
Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES — were
developed by MIT to test automated rendezvous and formation
flying in zero-gravity.
During a colloquium held on campus in March, Micire talked
about using the SPHERES droids in the space station to assist in
human-robot activities. “Our group is using Android smartphones
to provide the robots the needed sensing, navigation and planning
required for remote operation from the ground,” he says.
The phones will be delivered to the ISS by the four-member
crew of the space shuttle Atlantis during its mission this July.
Mark Micire ’10
64 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE S U M M E R 2 0 1 1