33.Choose the best answer.
CIMON 2 is a floating computer assistant. It was sent to the International Space Station(ISS)on December 5th, 2019. It was designed to work there for three years to help astronauts.
Actually, the International Space Station is a science lab in space. Now there are six people there. Usually astronauts stay in the ISS for five or six months. Can you imagine how boring it is to live in a tight space with just five other people for six months?
So CIMON was created with two jobs in mind. One is helping astronauts with tasks. The other is trying to be "someone " astronauts can talk to. CIMON stands for Crew Interactive Mobile (互动移动) Companion. It is a robot with a face which was created by the European airplane company, Airbus. It has no arms or legs, but it can move where it needs to go with motors inside.
Helping astronauts is easy for CIMON﹣it can see, hear, understand, and speak. Its "mouth" is a loudspeaker that can be used to talk or play music. The brain behind CIMON were provided by IBM, a computer company famous for training computers to understand human speech. CIMON can understand not just what people say, but what they mean. If astronauts ask it for instructions or information, CIMON can answer the astronauts, or use its screen to display pictures or documents, if needed. In addition, CIMON has several cameras, which can take pictures and videos to help astronauts keep records of experiments or other important actions.
The more difficult part of CIMON's job is being a companion for the astronauts. The first CIMON could understand what people were saying and mastered more than 1000 sentences, but it was limited. In one video, taken with German astronaut Alexander Gerst, CIMON seemed to become confused as Mr. Gerst spoke with another astronaut. "Don't be so mean, please, " CIMON said.
CIMON 2 has been improved so that it can recognize emotions and find out how people are feeling. The goal for CIMON is to be a calm, trusted friend that astronauts can talk to when they don't want to talk with others. This could be especially important if tension (紧张气氛) in a group of astronauts causes them to stop thinking clearly.