NASA is using AI to design alien-looking mission hardware

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: To create the weird looking hardware, a CAD specialist reviews a mission's requirements and draws in surfaces where the part will need to connect to a spacecraft or other hardware. The CAD operator also blocks out paths required for instruments like lasers or sensors and ensures there is enough room for a technician to assist with alignment and assembly.

We are only a month and a half into 2023 and it's already proving to be a breakout year for artificial intelligence. Following the early success of AI art generators like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, we are now seeing big tech get behind AI-powered chatbots.

NASA, meanwhile, has been using AI to help it design bespoke hardware for a while now.

Ryan McClelland, a research engineer with NASA, helped pioneer the agency's use of one-off parts using commercially available AI. The resulting hardware, which McClelland has dubbed "evolved structures," looks a bit alien even by his own admission. "But once you see them in function, it really makes sense," he added.

(McClelland designed this aluminum scaffold for the back of the EXCITE telescope, which is planned to make a test flight as early as fall of 2023. The curved, criss-crossed reinforcing structures were designed to resist significant off-centered forces.)

AI designs are subject to NASA's standard validation processes to help identify potential failure points. Once a blueprint has been given the green light, it is passed on to a commercial vendor for milling.

Bespoke components can be up to two-thirds the weight of traditionally made hardware and have a much faster turnaround time. The entire process – from design and analysis to fabrication and delivery – can be completed in as little as one week. Parts generated by algorithms are also much stronger than traditional hardware. In some instances, the stress factors are almost 10 times lower than parts designed by humans.

Evolved structures have already been used in a variety of NASA missions including space telescopes, planetary instruments, Earth-atmosphere scanners and the Mars sample return mission.

Image credit: Henry Dennis

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97634-nasa-using-ai-design-alien-looking-mission-hardware.html

 

[madboyv1]

Isn't this just topology optimization with extra steps and marketing-speak?

 

[Vulcanproject]

Apollo engineers could only have dreamed about having this sort of computer aided design available. I see the LEM as one of the finest pieces of engineering in history, the thing would crumple like a piece of paper if you looked at it the wrong way on Earth but in space flew like....an eagle. It was totally reliable and worked better than expected.

 

[Dunkerton]

It seems that this decade we will probably see the coding industry bubble burst thanks to AI. ChatGPT (although being nerfed into oblivion, making it more woke every day), already possesses the skills to replace intro-level coders. I don't want this to be the case but it certainly looks that way.

As a mechanical engineer, I didn't think AI would come for my job anytime soon - maybe at the end of the decade or the following one. What NASA uses looks to be very expensive, but as long as you know all the forces, frequencies, masses, etc., you can pretty much ask AI to create the design for you. The next part is fabrication, now if we can get on-point, accurate, and high-quality 3D prints made from steel, aluminum, Inconel, etc., NOW we're talkin'. Gotta stay ahead of the game!

 

[Steveb8189]

Looks very similar to these designs from a few years back

 

[mbrowne5061]

...The next part is fabrication, now if we can get on-point, accurate, and high-quality 3D prints made from steel, aluminum, Inconel, etc., NOW we're talkin'. Gotta stay ahead of the game!

I doubt you'll ever see that. Hogging a part out of solid metal leaves you with the solid crystalline structure that was formed when the metal stock was poured or extruded. With 3D printing, especially with metal, you never get one solid crystal of material. You get lots of internal voids and they're pretty much impossible to eliminate entirely. You can prove each part you print (as in 'each individual part' not 'each individual design') is up to snuff with x-ray and ultrasound inspections, but we lack a 'general form' for determining a 3D part or printing process will produce a part of sufficient strength and consistency. That will keep 3D printed parts relegated to low-rate runs for a good while longer.

 

[SilverCider]

Isn't this just topology optimization with extra steps and marketing-speak?

Largely, and it isn't new to the industry either. The AI elements could be to do with automated development of final CAD with design for manufacturing considered.

 

[rsmith222]

I don't see a certain people with his/her claim that AI is just a fad.

Lol.