The crewed exploration of Moon and Mars requires the construction and maintenance of infrastructure on the alien surfaces before a crew arrives. Robotic coworkers are envisioned to take over the physical labor required to set-up crew habitats, energy supplies, and return vehicles in the hazardous environment. Deploying these robots in such a remote location poses a challenge that requires autonomous robot capabilities in combination with effective Human Robot Interfaces (HRIs), which comply with the harsh conditions of deep space operations. An astronaut-robot teleoperation concept targeting these topics has been evaluated in DLR and ESA's METERON SUPVIS Justin experiment where astronauts on-board the International Space Station (ISS) commanded DLR's humanoid robot Rollin' Justin in a simulated Martian environment on Earth. This work extends on our previously presented approach to supervised autonomy. It examines the results of the two follow-up experiment sessions which investigated maintenance and assembly tasks in real-world scenarios. We discuss the use of our system in real space-toground deployment and analyze key performance metrics of the HRI and the feedback given by the astronauts.
MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) is a robotic sample return mission of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), CNES (Centre National d' Études Spatiales), and DLR (German Aerospace Center) with the launch planned for 2024. The mission aims to answer the question of the origin of Phobos and Deimos, which will also help to understand the material transport in the earliest period of our solar system, and of how was water brought to Earth. Besides JAXA's MMX mothership, which is responsible for sampling and sample return to Earth, a small rover which is built by CNES and DLR to land on Phobos for in-situ measurements, similar to MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) on Ryugu. The MMX rover is a fourwheel driven autonomous system with a size of 41 cm x 37 cm x 30 cm and a weight of approximately 25 kg. Multiple science instruments and cameras are integrated in the rover body. The rover body has the form of a rectangular box. Attached at the sides are four legs with one wheel per leg. When the rover is detached from the mothership, the legs are folded together at the side of the rover body. When the rover has landed passively (no parachute or braking rockets) on Phobos, the legs are autonomously maneuvered to bring the rover in an upright orientation. One Phobos day lasts 7.65 earth hours, which yields about 300 extreme temperature cycles for the total mission time of three earth months. These cycles and the wide span of surface temperature between day and night are the main design drivers for the rover. This paper gives a detailed view on the development of the MMX rover locomotion subsystem
The exploration of the universe remains a challenging endeavor, constantly pushing the limits of technology. Of special interest is the investigation of the other planets of our solar system such as Mars, which has been examined by various teleoperated and (semi-) autonomous satellites and landers. But an important milestone that is needed for a deeper understanding of the planet is still missing: A crewed landing. In order to send humans to such a remote location, an infrastructure for the landing crew including an energy supply, a habitat, and a return vehicle needs to be provided on the surface of the planet. The construction and maintenance of these structures is envisioned to be done by semiautonomous robots that are commanded from orbiting spacecrafts.
The on-going work at German Aerospace Center (DLR) and European Space Agency (ESA) on the Meteron SupvisJustin space telerobotic experiment utilizing supervised autonomy is presented. The Supvis-Justin experiment will employ a tablet UI for an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) to communicate task level commands to a service robot. The goal is to explore the viability of supervised autonomy for space telerobotics. For its validation, survey, navigation, inspection, and maintenance tasks will be commanded to DLR's service robot, Rollin' Justin, to be performed in a simulated extraterrestrial environment constructed at DLR. The experiment is currently slated for late 2015-2016.
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