CIMON 2: Emotionally Intelligent Robot Heads To ISS

In 2018, the Crew Interactive Mobile Companion (CIMON) reached the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX's Dragon Capsule, and the free-floating robot assisted the astronauts for over a year. Its second iteration with significant upgrades, CIMON 2, is on the way to the ISS and it is bringing more than just scientific assistance to the crew.

Emotionally Intelligent Robot

Both CIMON and CIMON 2 were developed by the European space company, Airbus, for the German space agency, DLR. However, CIMON 2 has been upgraded with IBM's Watson Tone Analyzer, allowing it so sense the astronauts’ emotions and react accordingly.

“This allows CIMON-2 to transition from a scientific assistant into an empathetic companion, as required,” IBM Lead Watson architect Matthias Biniok said.

Such artificial emotional technologies are significant when it comes to future crewed missions in deep space where the mental health of the crew might be at risk from the long-term isolation. Further, CIMON 2 is also designed to mitigate groupthink, the phenomenon in which isolated groups are driven to make irrational decisions.

With an emotionally intelligent robot such as CIMON 2, crew members will have an objective conversation partner, and the robot can also help to reorient the group to think more rationally and collaborate again.

Long-Term Missions

Testing CIMON and CIMON 2 is actually vital to future long-term space missions when crew members might not always have a connection with Earth. Apart from the mental health implications of isolation, it will also be difficult not having the assistance from Earth when they most need it.

In these cases when the astronauts find themselves on their own, they will still have the Earth's knowledge with them through an AI robot companion.

“On a journey to the Moon or Mars, the crew would be able to rely on an AI-based assistance service, without a permanent data link to Earth,” CIMON Project Manager at German Aerospace Center Christian Karrasch said.

For now, the plan is to keep CIMON 2 at the ISS for up to three years, which is much longer than the first CIMON's 14-month stay. During CIMON 2's ISS stay, the hope is that it will help make work at the ISS more efficient and perhaps even make for an excellent companion.