Robotic Lunar Surface Operations 2

Austin, Alex; Sherwood, Brent; Elliott, John; Colaprete, A.; Zacny, K.; Metzger, Philip T.; Sims, Michael H.; Schmitt, H. H.; Magnus, Sandra; Fong, Terry; Smith, Miles; Casillas, Raul Polit; Howe, Alan; Voecks, Gerald E.; Vaquero, Mar; Vendiola, V.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2020.06.038

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The high financial and environmental costs of space launches means that it is unfeasible to transport all of the resources required for the developing space industry from the Earth's surface (Bennett et al, 2020). Instead, extracting key materials from resources readily available outside the Earth's gravitational influence could enable humans to expand our presence in space in a sustainable and sustained manner (Austin et al, 2020). In-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) of lunar regolith to extract oxygen, water, or construction materials, in particular, would provide many of the key components for habitats, spacecraft fuel and human life support (Corrias et al, 2012;Crawford, 2015;Schlüter and Cowley, 2020), reducing the tonnes of material that would otherwise have been needed to be launched from Earth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verification of a virtual lunar regolith simulant

Louca,

Vrublevskis,

Eder

et al. 2024

Front. Space Technol.

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Introduction: Physical regolith simulants are valuable tools for developing In-Situ Resource Utilisation hardware. However, using virtual models of regolith instead can reduce costs, limit exposure to hazardous materials, and offer a practical method of testing the effects of reduced gravity.Methods: We verify a virtual model of regolith as macroparticles against physical tests. Using space partitioning techniques to identify neighbouring particles, we present a scalable model of regolith, in which the computation time increases roughly proportionally with the number of particles. We evaluated the performance of this virtual simulant vs. a physical simulant (Exolith LMS-1) by comparing the flow rate through funnels of various diameters, and the resultant angle of repose of material on both large (500 g) and small (16 g) scale tests.Results: For large scale tests, the flow rates were within the predicted range for macroparticles with radii 3–7 mm, with the greatest accuracy achieved for radii 4–5 mm. However, the macroparticles blocked the simulated funnels more easily than in the physical trials, due to their high cohesion. The angle of repose was not accurately represented by this model for either of the tests.Discussion: The high efficiency of this model makes it best suited for applications which require large scale approximations of regolith with real-time execution, such as virtual training for robot operators or providing visual and haptic feedback in model-mediated teleoperation systems. The results of this model in reduced gravity could be further verified against data from upcoming lunar missions in future work.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verification of a virtual lunar regolith simulant

Louca,

Vrublevskis,

Eder

et al. 2024

Front. Space Technol.

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“…Projects such as robotic lunar surface operations (RLSO) have attracted increasing attention toward the goal of building a human-capable lunar base and generating sufficient oxygen and hydrogen from the polar ice to operate it [3], [4]. The construction of a lunar base is necessary for long-term activities on the Moon; evidently, however, it is difficult for humans alone to construct a lunar base.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Agent Action Graph Based Task Allocation and Path Planning Considering Changes in Environment

Okubo

Takahashi

2023

IEEE Access

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Task allocation and path planning considering changes in the mobility of robots in the environment allows the robots to efficiently execute tasks with smaller travel times. A lunar base construction is one of the situations in which robots can more efficiently accomplish its goal by taking such environment changes into account when performing tasks. For the construction, we assumed that when a robot executes a task of building a road, the environment changes such that aisles that were unusable before the task become usable post execution. If such changes in environment are considered in advance, the robot can efficiently plan to wait until the environment changes and can move before executing the task. However, previous studies have not considered such changes, resulting in inefficient planning. To solve this problem, we developed a multi-agent action graph that consists of multiple layers and expresses the environment changes associated with task execution in terms of changes in these layers. In this graph, task allocation and path planning are formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem and are optimized using mixed-integer programming. Multi-agent action graphs and the proposed formulation enable efficient planning considering changes in the robots' mobility in advance. Through simulations, we confirmed that the proposed method completed the construction of the lunar base approximately 16.4% earlier than the conventional method, while consuming approximately 16.0% less total energy of the robots.INDEX TERMS Task allocation, path planning, environment changes, multi-robot systems, robotic lunar surface operations.

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“…Therefore, robotic manufacturing provides a unique opportunity to reconsider the architectural design process by designing not only the building but also the construction process itself, which manifests in its own aesthetic and intrinsic post-Fordist performance gains [1,7,20]. The rapid convergence of advanced digital and robotic modeling techniques has contributed to reconsideration of an architect as a contemporary master-builder and a digital toolmaker [21,22]. This further illustrates the need for more comprehensive solutions in the AEC industry and the importance of developing new design methodologies that endorse a more holistic approach to robotics adoption [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Environmental Design and Robotics Workflow for Double-Skin Facade Perforation Onsite

Ali¹,

Oj²

2021

Preprint

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In contemporary design practices, there is a disconnect between the design techniques used for early-stage design experimentation and performance analysis, and those used for the manufacture and construction. This study addresses the problems in developing an integrated digital design workflow and provides a research framework for integrating environmental performance requirements with robotic manufacturing processes on a construction site. The proposed method enables the user to import a design surface, identify design parameters, set several environmental performance goals, and thereafter simulate and select a robotic building strategy. Based on these inputs, design alternatives are developed and evaluated, considering their robotically simulated constructibility, in terms of their performance criteria. To validate the proposed method, the design is evaluated in an experiment wherein a double-skin facade perforation is generated using the proposed methodology. The results suggest a heuristic feature to improve the simulated robotic constructibility. Moreover, the functionality of the prototype is demonstrated.

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Robotic Lunar Surface Operations 2

Cited by 25 publications

References 2 publications

Verification of a virtual lunar regolith simulant

Verification of a virtual lunar regolith simulant

Multi-Agent Action Graph Based Task Allocation and Path Planning Considering Changes in Environment

Integrated Environmental Design and Robotics Workflow for Double-Skin Facade Perforation Onsite

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