I led and organized team of 8 designers, artists and programmers to develop an AR application for EVA assistance, which we had the opportunity to test NASA Johnson Space Center. We wrote a poster and paper detailing implementation details, which was accepted and is to be presented in UIST'22. To create this project we received grants from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium and Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

About MoonBuddy:

As NASA pursues Artemis missions to the moon and beyond, it is essential to equip astronauts with the appropriate human-autonomy enabling technology necessary for the elevated demands of lunar surface exploration and extreme terrestrial access. We present MoonBuddy, an application built for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 that utilizes Augmented Reality (AR) and voice-based interaction to assist astronauts in communication, navigation, and documentation on future lunar extravehicular activities (EVAs), with the goal of reducing cognitive load and increasing effective task completion.

We performed a preliminary evaluation at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA, in an area that simulates the lunar surface and its lighting conditions. During testing, participants used MoonBuddy to navigate to three different geological sampling sites, collect rock samples, and perform a search and rescue mission to find a distressed crew member. Overall, participants appreciated the simple voice commands, the guided nature of MoonBuddy, and the surface edge detection feature that helped them avoid hazards during navigation.