The Australian Space Agency is a government funded organization at the heart of space in Australia.
The agency exists to advance Australia’s position in the global space economy ranging from international engagement, policy advice, and initiatives to ‘inspire’ the nation.
Akin is expanding capacity in the space industry with a grant from the Australian Space Agency’s International Space Investment initiative.
As Australia’s leading body on space and space exploration, the Australian Space Agency had the view that an AI assistant with emotional intelligence could prove invaluable on future missions, potentially anticipating and addressing crew members' mental health concerns.
Akin was engaged to develop an AI that could one day provide emotional support for astronauts on deep-space missions.
The Akin partnership utilizes the Open Source Rover project, which makes publicly available the basic designs of actual Mars rovers like Curiosity.
Since 2020, the Akin team has used the Open Source Rover to test and develop Akin’s emotionally intelligent AI.
The result is a rover dubbed Henry the Helper. Puttering around the agency grounds and conversing with employees and site visitors, it demonstrates the AI’s ability to interact with humans and recognize human emotion.
The plan is for these learnings to be applied to AI systems and robots on space missions.
Akin's frontier technology has been built at the intersection of neuroscience, chaos theory, cognitive sciences and AI
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