BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), to help create a training module for their Indian Human Spaceflight Programme (IHSP).
IITM will help develop a training module for use by ISRO through the use of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) in ISRO’s human space flight programmes. “Space programmes always had linkages with academia and IIT Madras has a long history of contributing for ISRO’s programme, including the human spaceflight programme. It is always a pleasure to collaborate with IIT-Madras,” said ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) Director Umamaheswaran R.
ISRO will make use of IITM’s newly inaugurated centre, the eXperiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC) in making use of extended reality (XR) technologies like AR and VR to train astronauts for ISRO’s crewed spaceflight programme. The centre will also help in providing training to HSFC engineers in establishing an XR lab at HSFC.
As part of the MoU, IITM will be providing training to ISRO scientists in developing their own XR technology as well as helping them form a training module to use for ISRO’s human spaceflights. XTIC is the first research centre in India that focuses on XR and combines several fields of engineering, physiology and medicine in the use of XR. “We will start with developing models of physiological systems as well as design optimization studies,” said M Manivannan, XTIC’s principal investigator.