Teaching Robots to "Feel Pain": AstraQua Secures $1.3 Million NASA Contract
Pain is the body's warning system. AstraQua is building one for robots.
NASA has awarded AstraQua Inc., a physical AI company, a $1,274,990 Phase II contract to advance its AstraSense technology for electric and hybrid-electric aircraft, including advanced air mobility applications.
Physical AI must have safety at its core. A robot may know where to go and what to do, but does it know whether it is healthy enough to finish the job?
Powered by AstraQua's Agentic Physical AI, the Adaptive Quorum Foundation Model, AstraSense provides predictive health and operational self-awareness for autonomous systems and already runs on robotic hardware. In Phase I, AstraQua demonstrated real-time diagnostics and predictive-health capabilities to NASA.
As autonomous vehicles increasingly fly over populated areas, their ability to understand and respond to their own health becomes critical to safe operation.
Phase II builds on those demonstrations by advancing aircraft integration and health-informed reasoning, with verification and validation for safety-critical applications. The goal is to help machines use their own health information to decide whether to continue a task, adapt or stop.
"A robot should know when to slow down, not just when it has broken down," said Loay Elbasyouni, founder and CEO of AstraQua. "That's what we mean by teaching robots to feel pain: using their own health to make better, safer decisions in real time."
For AstraSense, self-awareness means understanding the condition of a machine's own systems. When machines work together, sharing health information can help inform decisions across the group.
AstraSense provides this health-awareness capability within AstraQua's broader software brain designed to connect perception, onboard reasoning and collaboration across different types of robots. Think of a robot "calling in sick": when its condition limits its ability to work, the team should recognize that change and assign suitable unfinished tasks to another capable machine.
In an industrial inspection scenario, drones could survey a site while ground robots inspect equipment. If one ground robot needs to stop, another suitably equipped robot could take over its remaining tasks while the drones continue their work. The goal is to help mixed teams of robots adapt and complete a shared mission.
AstraQua's approach emphasizes low-power onboard intelligence, reduced dependence on continuous cloud connectivity and decisions that account for each machine's health and operating limits. The NASA-funded aircraft work advances AstraSense within that broader effort to help autonomous systems work together.
Elbasyouni helped make aviation history on Mars. He led electrical and power-electronics work supporting NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet, and later led rocket-engine avionics at Blue Origin. He was named among LA Times Studios' 2026 Aerospace & Defense Business Visionaries. At AstraQua, he is applying that experience to physical AI that helps autonomous machines understand their own condition and make safer decisions.
Elbasyouni is available for interviews on robotic self-awareness, AstraSense's hardware demonstrations, collaboration across autonomous teams and the move into advanced air mobility.
About AstraQua
AstraQua develops Agentic Physical AI that helps autonomous machines perceive, reason, adapt and collaborate across air, land, sea and space. Its technology is designed to help intelligent machines work together with or without continuous connectivity. The company has operations in California and Kentucky. Learn more at astraqua.com.
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SOURCE AstraQua Inc