Google will be using technology from Project Tango to help NASA build floating robots to assist astronauts with tasks aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Project Tango's android-powered smartphones will be attached to the robots, called Spheres (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites), according to Mashable.
The smartphone has 3D-tracking and mapping capabilities, which will help the Spheres move around the ISS.
"Think about having a free-flying robot that can fly around inside the space station, perhaps equipped with some type of future smartphone," Zach Moratto, research engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center, said in a YouTube video about the project's details.
Project Tango's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) has spent over a year working with NASA Ames Researchers on combining the smartphone with robots, which, according to the YouTube video, are aimed at assisting astronauts as well as performing maintenance on their own, Mashable reported.
"The 3D-tracking and mapping capabilities of Project Tango would allow Spheres to reconstruct a 3D-map of the space station and, for the first time in history, enable autonomous navigation of a floating robotic platform 230 miles above the surface of the earth," the description listed on the company's video read.
There are three Spheres, each with their own propulsion and power systems, currently aboard the station, NBC News reported. The robots use ultrasound and infrared technology to move around the ISS, even though they are not the most advanced methods.
Project Tango was introduced February as an initiative to combine Android smartphones with 3-D mapping technology. Google and NASA are looking to launch a Project Tango smartphone into orbit this summer.
"The Project Tango prototype incorporates a particularly important feature for the Smart SPHERES- a 3-D sensor," said Terry Fong of NASA's Ames Research Center, in a February statement. "This allows the satellites to do a better job of flying around on the space station and understanding where exactly they are."
The success of the project would lead to new possible uses for the robots in the future, NBC News reported.
NASA said that there is a possibility that the Spheres could eventually help inspect the outside of spacecraft in deep-space missions.
