Abstract-Exploration of high risk terrain areas such as cliff faces and site construction operations by autonomous robotic systems on Mars requires a control architecture that is able to autonomously adapt to uncertainties in knowledge of the environment. We report on the development of a software/hardware framework for cooperating multiple robots performing such tightly coordinated tasks. This work builds on our earlier research into autonomous planetary rovers and robot arms. Here, we seek to closely coordinate the mobility and manipulation of multiple robots to perform examples of a cliff traverse for science data acquisition, and site construction operations including grasping, hoisting, and transport of extended objects such as large array sensors over natural, unpredictable terrain. In support of this work we have developed an enabling distributed control architecture called control architecture for multirobot planetary outposts (CAMPOUT) wherein integrated multirobot mobility and control mechanisms are derived as group compositions and coordination of more basic behaviors under a task-level multiagent planner. CAMPOUT includes the necessary group behaviors and communication mechanisms for coordinated/cooperative control of heterogeneous robotic platforms. In this paper, we describe CAMPOUT, and its application to ongoing physical experiments with multirobot systems at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, for exploration of cliff faces and deployment of extended payloads.

NASA mission concepts for the upcoming decades of this century include exploration of sites such as steep cliff faces on Mars, as well as infrastructure deployment for a sustained robotic/manned presence on planetary and/or the lunar surface. Single robotic platforms, such as the Sojourner rover successfully flown in 1997 and the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) which landed on Mars in January of 2004, have neither the autonomy, mobility, nor manipulation capabilities for such ambitious undertakings. One possible approach to these future missions is the fielding of cooperative multi-robot systems that have the required onboard control algorithms to more or less autonomously perform tightly coordinated tasks. These control algorithms must operate under the constrained mass, volume, processing, and communication conditions that are present on NASA planetary surface rover systems. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of distributed control algorithms that build on our earlier development of an enabling architecture called CAMPOUT (Control Architecture for Multi-robot Planetary Outposts). We also report on some ongoing physical experiments in tightly coupled distributed control at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA where in the first study two rovers acquire and carry an extended payload over uneven, natural terrain, and in the second three rovers form a team for cliff access.

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Relatively recent discoveries have shown that large quantities of water can be found on moons of some of the planets among the gas giants in our solar system. Robotic mobility systems can study the varied geology and origins of these bodies if they are able to navigate the complex terrains of ocean worlds. The topographical features of ocean worlds present a unique combination of challenges for mobility. These include cryogenic ice, penitentes, salt evaporites, chaotic regions, and regolith with uncertain shear and sinkage properties. Uncertainty in both terrain properties and geometry motivates design of a platform that is mobile within a large range of obstacle geometries and terrain properties. This article reports on a research effort to study the requirements and numerically optimize the kinematic parameters of the rover to satisfy these goals. The platforms selected in the process were further verified via simulation. A simulation and analysis of grousers generated suitable designs for interaction with similar ledges and rough terrain. From this analysis, a prototype was developed and tested to meet the wide range of topography and terramechanics conditions expected on these bodies.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing the Lunar Surface Operations Simulator software package to support analyses for future NASA lunar missions. The package is built on and extended from previous simulation packages developed at JPL. It simulates mechanical motion, soil interaction, environmental, and physical processes. Physical process dynamics include environmental control and life support, thermal, radiation and power transients. An integrated architecture allows use of common models and enables interactions between components operating in different domains to be easily modeled. We describe recent developments and analyses performed to support lunar surface missions and analog field trials.

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Abstract. The Lunar Surface Operations Simulator (LSOS) is being developed to support planning and design of space missions to return astronauts to the moon. Vehicles, habitats, dynamic and physical processes and related environment systems are modeled and simulated in LSOS to assist in the visualization and design optimization of systems for lunar surface operations. A parametric analysis tool and a data browser were also implemented to provide an intuitive interface to run multiple simulations and review their results. The simulator and parametric analysis capability are described in this paper.