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About

Kimberly Tyree is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction and multi-agent systems for space exploration, whose work has fundamentally shaped how astronauts and robots collaborate on planetary surfaces. Her most influential contribution is the NASA Mobile Agents Architecture, a distributed multi-agent system that integrates diverse mobile entities into a wide-area wireless network for lunar and planetary operations—a framework that has garnered 11 citations for its innovative use of the Brahms multiagent language. Tyree’s research focuses on three critical areas: robotic intelligence for uncertain planetary environments, astronaut-robot interfaces, and autonomous humanoid assistants. She demonstrated that even with human supervision, robots require individual intelligence to adapt to changing lunar and Martian conditions, as shown in her 8-citation work on human-assistant planetary robots. Her Astronaut Interface Device (AID) project, with 6 citations, developed technologies enabling suited astronauts to control multiple robots simultaneously, providing real-time situational awareness. Perhaps most notably, Tyree led the development of a mobile autonomous humanoid assistant that combined NASA’s Robonaut upper body with a Segway platform, successfully assisting human co-workers with tool handling tasks at Johnson Space Center. Her work continues to inform NASA’s approach to human-robot teaming for future Artemis missions and Mars exploration.