The METERON Operations Environment and Robotic Services, a plug-and-play system infrastructure for Robotic experiments

Abstract

The ESA METERON (Multi-purpose End-To-End Robotic Operations Network) aims to demonstrate the feasibility of controlling advanced robots on Earth using 'telepresence' control equipment, providing essential experience for planning and preparing real human exploration missions. In this context METERON can be seen as a test-bed forfuture missions to the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies. The METERON activities are organised in dedicated experiments, which combine testing operations, ground and space systems, technologies, and robotic systems in an environment as realistic as possible. In particular, the "plug & play" METERON Operations Environment (MOE) and METERON Robotic Services (MRS) have been developed. The METERON Operations Environment (MOE) is the term used for referring to the METERON software systems involved in robotic operations on the ground and on-board the ISS. The implementation of the MOE has been heavily based on the reuse of the existing ESA Ground Segment Test and Validation Infrastructure (GSTVi) and selected elements of the EGOS infrastructure. In the last two years, MOE and the MRS have been successfully used in several experiments aiming at validating different technologies, concepts and scenarios (Disruption/Delay Tolerant Networks, real-time mission operations, multi-asset monitoring & control, distributed robotic operations), and conducted in collaboration with different partners, such as ESTEC (Telerobotic & Haptics Laboratory, Planetary Robotics Laboratory), Thales Alenia Space Italia, UKSA, Airbus UK, NASA (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and the Belgian User Support and Operations Centre (BUSOC). This paper presents the recent METERON developments concerning the METERON Operations Environment (MOE) and METERON Robotic Services (MRS), the most recent experiments, and the technologies that are been used.