SmartSuit (Credit; Ana Diaz Artiles)
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program
Phase I Award: Up to $125,000 for 9 Months
SmartSuit: A Hybrid, Intelligent, and Highly Mobile EVA Spacesuit for Next Generation Exploration Missions
Ana Diaz Artiles
Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
We propose a novel spacesuit intelligent architecture for extravehicular activity (EVA) operations on Mars and other planetary environments that increases human performance by an order of magnitude on several quantifiable fronts for exploration missions. The proposed SmartSuit spacesuit, while gas-pressurized, also incorporates soft-robotics technology that allows astronauts to be highly mobile and better interact with their surroundings.