Drones could have been used to help astronauts a long time ago, but until now there has been a big problem with them, namely it is difficult to imagine controlling them with the use of typical "space" gloves.

These are large, stiff and under pressure, which in practice means that the movement of the fingers is very limited, not to say impossible. So it's hard to imagine that anyone would be able to control the small drone controllers with them - fortunately, the solution is coming, namely the Astronaut Smart Glove equipped with a number of innovations. They are a project of a Norwegian startup called Ntention, which came up with the idea to install sensors inside the gloves that detect even the most subtle hand movements.

These are then translated into various types of signals and wirelessly sent to a mobile device in a space suit, which transmits them to the drone in the form of commands. Researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center have expressed interest in this technology and tested it this summer on the Mars-like Devon Island in the Arctic, all as part of the Haughton-Mars Project. It quickly turned out that it could be a hit, because the gloves allow you to remotely control a quadcopter with a propeller drive, although in places where the atmosphere is very rare, like on the Red Planet, you will need to switch to rocket drive.

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It does not matter, however, because it is about the control method itself, which can also be translated into our earthly conditions and used to control drones, e.g. on construction sites. It is worth emphasizing that the achievement is all the more impressive because Ntention consists mainly of students of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, whose scope of interest covers such various fields as economics, cybernetics, robots and industrial design, so we are dealing with less experienced scientists.