IIT Madras and ISRO collaborate to develop an astronaut training module

In order to develop a training module for the Indian Spaceflight Program, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have announced their collaboration today.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by ISRO and IIT Madras to work together on the application of Extended Reality (XR) and other technologies into the Indian Human Spaceflight Program. This training module will be developed using mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will use the cutting-edge technologies developed by the eXperiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC) at IIT Madras to advance research and development (R&D) in the area of extended reality, in accordance with the collaboration’s guidelines.

The IIT Madras and ISRO collaboration will result in outreach initiatives, visualisation and optimization of design architecture, modelling and simulation of human physiology as well as space systems, and training of ISRO scientists in developing their own XR systems.

“XR Technologies has the potential to add value in many aspects of human spaceflight programme specifically in shortening the design cycle and simulating the space environment,” said Professor M. Manivannan, Principle Investigator of XTIC-IIT Madras. “We will start with developing models of physiological systems as well as design optimization studies. IIT Madras ecosystem is conducive not-only for research, but also for development with our industrial consortium,” he added.

Speaking about the collaboration, ISRO, HSFC, Director, Umamaheswaran R, said, “Space program always had linkages with academia and IIT Madras has a long history of contributing for ISRO’s program including human spaceflight program. It is always a pleasure to collaborate with IIT-Madras.”