mobiPV: A New, Wearable Real-Time Collaboration Software for Astronauts Using Mobile Computing Solutions

摘要

mobiPV is an innovative wearable and mobile procedure viewer, which gives astronauts a truly hands-free operations environment and provides them with an instantaneous, direct two-way link with the experts on ground. In turn, the system provides the ground with an exact view of the procedure being executed, including current step marker position, as well as an "astronaut eye view" of the task at hand. All the hardware is Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) whereby a custom software runs on a smartphone, linked to a wearable head-mounted camera, an audio headset and, optionally, a mobile tablet. Astronauts can navigate through the procedure using either voice commands or the smartphone/tablet touchscreen. A multimedia collaboration environment is available: the crew and ground can exchange audio, text and video notes as well as activate either audio-only or full two-way video communication. All data exchanges are conducted over IP and rely on the Multipurpose Computer and Communication (MPCC) system. mobiPV has been successfully tested during the NEEMO 19 and NEEMO 20 underwater 'aquanaut' missions in 2014 and 2015 as well as during the ESA iriss Mission on the International Space Station (ISS), with the plan to validate increasingly complex experiment utilisation scenarios during future increments onboard the ISS. In general, mobiPV has been shown to improve astronaut efficiency and greatly reduce the time lost suspending an activity to consult laptop/tablet/paper instructions at each step in the procedure. The system also eliminates ground guesswork of what step the crew is currently working on. This paper describes the ISS flight crew operations of this new real-time collaboration software using wearable, mobile computing solutions and its effectiveness in human spaceflight operations.