Planetary Exploration With Robot Teams: Implementing Higher Autonomy With Swarm Intelligence

Abstract

Since the beginning of space exploration, Mars and the Moon have been explored with orbiters, landers, and rovers. Over forty missions have targeted Mars, and more than a hundred, the Moon. Developing novel strategies and technologies for exploring celestial bodies continues to be a focus of space agencies. Multi-robot systems are particularly promising for planetary exploration, as they are more robust to individual failure and have the potential to explore larger areas; however, there are limits to how many robots an operator can individually control. We recently took part in the European Space Agency's interdisciplinary equipment test campaign (PANGAEA-X) at a Lunar/Mars analogue site in Lanzarote, Spain. We used a heterogeneous fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)-a swarm-to study the interplay of systems operations and human factors. Human operators directed the swarm via ad-hoc networks and data sharing protocols to explore unknown areas under two control modes: one in which the operator instructed each robot separately; and the other in which the operator provided general guidance to the swarm, which self-organized via a combination of distributed decision-making, and consensus building. We assessed cognitive load via pupillometry for each condition, and perceived task demand and intuitiveness via self-report. Our results show that implementing higher autonomy with swarm intelligence can reduce workload, freeing the operator for other tasks such as overseeing strategy, and communication. Future work will further leverage advances in swarm intelligence for exploration missions.

The ARCHES Space-Analogue Demonstration Mission: Towards Heterogeneous Teams of Autonomous Robots for Collaborative Scientific Sampling in Planetary Exploration

“…In [13], a team of two hybrid wheeled/legged robots is remotely operated via an augmented reality interface to collect geological samples in a Mars-analogue environment. Assisted teleoperation is investigated in [14], where a swarm of GPS-based drones is deployed on Lanzarote to gather aerial images with the goal to minimize the cognitive load of the operators. In contrast to these approaches and to [4], our robotic team will primarily operate in full autonomy governed by a complex mission control framework.…”

Volcanic Caves as Priority Sites for Astrobiology Science

“…This area of autonomy consists of assessing risk, and adapting to the terrain as the robot learns more about the environment. It is an area that has seen huge advancement in the last decade (Otsu et al, 2020, St-Onge et al, 2019, Best et al, 2018, Dang et al, 2019, Reinhart et al, 2020, Tabib et al, 2020. (iv) Communication: Effective mobile-robot autonomy in self-governing exploration requires reliable communication.…”

On-Line Optimal Ranging Sensor Deployment for Robotic Exploration

“…Nowadays, they are pervasively applied in a variety of applications. Exploration of unknown environments has attracted an increasing attention due to their large application scenarios, such as search and rescue missions [1], disaster recovery [2], planetary exploration [3], photogrammetry [4], aerial inspection and monitoring of buildings and structures [5] [6], agriculture [7] and predictive maintenance [8]. Localisation and positioning capabilities are primary features for any autonomous exploration system.…”