{"571441":{"#nid":"571441","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Chernova Earns NASA Early Career Faculty Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machine\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/chernova\u0022\u003ESonia Chernova\u003C\/a\u003E is one of eight university researchers nationwide selected by NASA to receive the 2016\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/press\/2014\/july\/nasa-announces-early-career-faculty-space-tech-research-grants\/\u0022\u003EEarly Career Faculty Award\u003C\/a\u003E (ECF) in the Space Technology Research Grants program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe grants, worth up to $200,000 per year over three years, are awarded to outstanding early career faculty focused on space technology development addressing critical needs in the U.S. space program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChernova,\u0026nbsp;an assistant professor of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, received the award for her proposal to develop interactive robotic systems that enable co-located astronauts and Earth-based NASA operators to refine and adapt the behavior of a robot during deployment in a way that maximizes task efficiency and human-robot team operation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs NASA prepares future crewed low-Earth orbit, lunar, and Mars-based deployments, the award provides Chernova with funding to develop techniques for execution of repetitive, routine, and potentially hazardous tasks by robots.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI hope that my research will enable a robot to detect when unexpected operating conditions are encountered, request help from co-located crew members or remote ground control operators, as appropriate, and refine its operating procedures to improve future task execution and the long-term autonomy of the system,\u201d Chernova said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECurrent practices in deploying robotic space systems are limited to manual teleoperation of robots by crews in co-located settings, and the use of carefully handcrafted structured control sequences from ground control. Both approaches are costly in terms of crew time and effort and are not scalable for long-term, co-robot deployments.\u0026nbsp;By enabling the robots to leverage the inputs obtained from human operators, Chernova\u2019s work aims to facilitate the automation of many routine tasks, thereby reducing the\u0026nbsp;load on human crew members and supporting safer, more affordable, and more effective human-robot space exploration and discovery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENASA\u2019s Early Career Faculty Award is administered by the agency\u2019s Space Technology Research Grants Program, which seeks to accelerate the development of emerging technologies from academia that serve the needs of NASA, other government agencies, and space-related industries.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machine\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/chernova\u0022\u003ESonia Chernova\u003C\/a\u003E is one of eight university researchers nationwide selected by NASA to receive the 2016\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/press\/2014\/july\/nasa-announces-early-career-faculty-space-tech-research-grants\/\u0022\u003EEarly Career Faculty Award\u003C\/a\u003E (ECF) in the Space Technology Research Grants program.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Chernova\u2019s grant, worth up to $200,000 per year over three years, is awarded to outstanding early career faculty focused on space technology development addressing critical needs in the U.S. space program."}],"uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2016-08-31 16:20:31","changed_gmt":"2022-05-26 17:09:36","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"571471":{"id":"571471","type":"image","title":"Sonia Chernova","body":null,"created":"1472676847","gmt_created":"2016-08-31 20:54:07","changed":"1475895379","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:56:19","alt":"Sonia Chernova","file":{"fid":"207097","name":"sonia_chernova.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sonia_chernova_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sonia_chernova_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":87189,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sonia_chernova_1.jpg?itok=TYrPSzqp"}}},"media_ids":["571471"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/directorates\/spacetech\/strg\/ecf2016.html","title":"NASA Press Release"},{"url":"http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/chernova","title":"Sonia Chernova"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"81491","name":"Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM)"},{"id":"172312","name":"NASA Early Career Faculty Award"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"169047","name":"Sonia Chernova"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJosie Giles - IRIM Marketing Communications Mgr.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["josie@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}