Autonomous Food Production

Growing food in space will not only allow us to extend the length of future missions in space, but also significantly increase the astronauts' well-being. The proposed research focus on the fundamental sensing and manipulation challenges of automating parts of the operations of in-space greenhouses to facilitate tele-operation. Specifically, we are investigating machine learning techniques to extract the growth stage of plants from a combination of volumetric, color, and infrared data, and novel algorithms for manipulating flexible structures using two arms, much like a human gardener does when picking a fruit.

This project focuses on fundamental challenges associated with the automation of in-space greenhouse operations. Such systems would not only allow us to extend the length of future missions in space, but also significantly increase the astronauts' well-being.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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