Northeastern Students Create VR Controls for NASA’s SUIT Competition
Northeastern’s SEDS club developed a mixed reality system for controlling lunar rovers as part of NASA’s SUITS competition. Collaborating with a University of Michigan team, they created VR interfaces that could enable efficient remote operation of robots for future moon settlements.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cesareo Contreras. Main photo: Page Patterson, who studies electrical and computer engineering, works on a project to compete in NASA’s SUIT competition. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Northeastern team uses innovative VR technology to develop controls for moon rover in NASA challenge
Mixed reality may be a key enabling technology for NASA astronauts as they work to develop long-term settlements on the moon.
At Northeastern University, a group of students has spent the past school year developing a mixed reality system to help the space agency do just that.
Those students will now test that technology as they compete against nine other universities across the country as part of NASA’s Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) competition. The competition will be held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston from May 18 to 22.
The students worked in tandem with a team from the University of Michigan on the project, which has two main components.
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 The competition will run from May 18 to May 22. Photos by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University | |
The University of Michigan team was tasked with developing technologies to enhance the space suits NASA astronauts will use during extravehicular activities. Northeastern’s team, which is a part of the Northeastern Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) club, has been tasked with developing software for a pressurized rover designed to accompany those astronauts on the mission.
Northeastern’s team decided to take advantage of virtual reality for the task, utilizing Meta’s line of headsets, explains Page Patterson, an incoming fourth-year computer and electrical engineering student and the project lead of Northeastern’s SUITS team.
The SUITS team was supported by Mallesham Dasari, a Northeastern professor of electrical and computer engineering and the team’s advisor. Additionally, the team was assisted by Northeastern’s Spatial Intelligence Research Group.
“We’ve created a virtual reality interface to be able to control and interact with the rover and also interact with its autonomous driving controls,” Patterson says.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News