Google and NASA’s floating space robots are all kinds of awesome

“The future is awesome,” brags Google.

NASA and Google plan to launch floating robots with 3-D mapping technology into our orbit, this will allow them to navigate by themselves for the first time. Yes HAL now can go around the ship as it pleases.

Google is helping NASA make its space robots even more intelligent.

You see, the current system relies on ultrasound and infrared light to navigate. The new system built with the help of Google utilises 3-D mapping technology to allow the floating robots to move around with far more ease.

The SPHERES, which in essence act like robotic assistants to the astronauts of the International Space Station, will have the technology behind newly unveiled Project Tango (soon to be coming to your Android phone, awesome huh) to better get around. The technology allows phones to make 3-D real-time maps of their environment, and thus allowing the Sphere’s to navigate themselves.

“Think about having a free-flying robot that can fly around inside a space station, perhaps equipped with some type of future smartphone,” says Zach Moratto, one of the NASA research engineers involved in the project.