SPHERES ISS Experiment
2015 experiment with the first learning robot in space. Specifically, a SPHERES robot on the International Space Station (ISS) uses its stereo vision system to learn to see distances also with a single camera. This type of self-supervised learning is very safe, and will bring additional robustness to space robots.
This was a joint project of the Micro Air Vehicle Lab at TU Delft, the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Space Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
For more information, see the scientific article:
Van Hecke, K., de Croon, G. C., Hennes, D., Setterfield, T. P., Saenz-Otero, A., & Izzo, D. (2017). Self-supervised learning as an enabling technology for future space exploration robots: ISS experiments on monocular distance learning. Acta Astronautica, 140, 1-9.