I dunno, that design is very, very close to the astromechs seen in the films; closer, as someone noticed, than are McQuarrie's early designs. Which suggests to me that the picture is of a copy of the droids from SW, not the other way around. Because the design evolution generally 'arrives' at the final design, not start with it, then change to something else, then go back to the original. I could be wrong but it seems much simpler that way. Especially since we don't know when exactly this picture was from.