Special to STARTREK.COM by Keith Cowing, SpaceRef.com

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Quality Of Life," the crew of the Enterprise-D encounters a small team of robots called "exocomps" with an unexpected quality: an instinct for self-preservation. They also have the ability to coordinate tasks among themselves and work together as a team.

While current robot technology has yet to catch up with the ability of the exocomps to not only consciously anticipate but react to the threat of personal injury, current space robots are learning to cooperate with each other — and keep from getting stuck on a rock. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a robotic work crew is being tested with a possible future application on the surface of Mars.

These small robots (about the same size as the exocomps) move about on wheels and can manipulate objects with a robotic arm. The real star here is not the robot's hardware, though; as was the case with the exocomps, it is the software that makes these robots special.

The new software is called "Control Architecture for Multi-robot Planetary Outposts" ("CAMPOUT" for short) and allows a team of robots to coordinate with one another and plan tasks that the team as a whole then implements. Visual input allows the robots to track their progress. Constant updates among the members of the team allow complex tasks to be performed autonomously. (Photo courtesy NASA/JPL)

As they work, the rovers tend to function like "a construction crew without a foreman," according to NASA. "Once the system has been programmed with basic behaviors and coordination models, it is a truly distributed and autonomous intelligence across the robot team that gets the job done, responding to situations of the minute," a JPL press release stated.

Other space robots under development by NASA fly, slither, and hop — as well as drive. One rover named "Nomad" has sophisticated software that has allowed it to find meteorites in Antarctica. (Coincidentally, in Star Trek history this is the year that Jackson Roykirk launches his life-seeking probe also called Nomad.)

During the course of their interaction with the crew of the Enterprise-D, the exocomps certainly managed to look out for themselves — often refusing to do some of the things that humans ordered them to. In a crude preview of what the exocomps could do, the software that runs NASA's robots allows them to move across uneven and potentially hazardous terrain and avoid a path that could cause damage. So there are some things the robots won't do even if they are told to do so by humans.

In addition to self-preservation, the exocomps exhibited other special behaviors as well. When a life-or-death situation faced a human away team, the exocomps decided among themselves to sacrifice one of their own so as to allow the humans — and others of their own kind — to survive. The exocomps were also able to physically repair themselves. While NASA's current robots have yet to exhibit spontaneous altruism or self-repair, the ability to cooperate autonomously with adaptive software is a big step down that path.

Of course, the exocomps had one other handy advantage over today's space robots: a sympathetic android named Data who could intercede on behalf of his mechanical brethren when humans sought to put them in harm's way.

In other recent science news, a new device said to be analogous to Dr. McCoy's medical tricorder has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Hutchinson Technology Inc. of Minnesota spent seven years developing the InSpectra Tissue Spectrometer, which uses "non-contact measurement technology" to measure oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in skeletal muscle tissue. The company expects to begin selling the device in the first half of this year, according to the Associated Press.

In addition, CNN.com recently reported that NASA researchers are investigating antimatter as a potential fuel for future deep space excursions. While the production of antimatter is prohibitively expensive right now, scientists hope to transform antimatter propulsion from science fiction to fact in 50 to 100 years (just about in time to meet Zefram Cochrane's launch schedule). The full article — which also discusses medical applications of antimatter — can be found here.

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