ANALOG-1 ISS - The first part of an analogue mission to guide ESA's robotic moon exploration efforts

The METERON project is a European initiative to prepare for future human-robotic exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies. The project aims to implement infrastructure and tools to test and evaluate communications, operations and robotic control strategies in the context of future exploration missions. It is in collaboration between three directorates of the European Space Agency (ESA); Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE), Technology, Engineering and Quality (TEC), Operations (OPS). This paper presents the first part of the on-going ANALOG-1 experiment which is the culmination of the METERON project, implementing the knowledge gained in the 12 distinct METERON experiments between 2011 and 2020. These all address aspects of teleoperating a robotic asset from an orbital platform, i.e. technical implementation, user interfaces, autonomy and operations. The ANALOG-1 technology demonstration and operations concept experiment is based upon the surface mission scenario segment of the notional EL3 sample return mission. This segment focuses on the control of a lunar surface robotic asset from the Earth and from the Lunar Gateway. In November 2019, the first part of this experiment was successfully completed from the ISS. It assessed the effectiveness of a state-of-the-art robotic control interface to control a complex mobile robot from orbit, as well as evaluating the scientific interactions, during robotic-assisted geology exploration, between crew in orbit and scientists on the ground. Luca Parmitano drove this robot in a lunar analogue site in the Netherlands, and controlled its arms, while he was on the ISS. For this experiment, a complex control station had been installed on the ISS, including a sigma.7 haptic device. This device allowed the astronaut to feel forces felt by the robotic arm. The experiment demonstrated the advantage of having an immersive control station and high level of robotic dexterity, with Luca finishing all his assigned and secondary geology targets ahead of time. The second part of Analog-1 extends the ISS experiment with a full ground-based analogue, in which further technical experiments and a full mission scenario will be played out. The analogue is in cooperation with the DLR ARCHES space demo mission, and includes a rover operations centre based at ESOC as well as an outdoor lunar analogue site on Mount Etna. The astronaut, in this case, is on ground. We expect to further demonstrate the advantages of a state-of-the art interface for both fully teleoperated and semi-autonomous rover and robotic arm control for lunar missions, in order to guide ESA's Moon exploration efforts

Exploring planet geology through force-feedback telemanipulation from orbit

Current space exploration roadmaps envision exploring the surface geology of celestial bodies with robots, for both scientific research and in-situ resource utilization. In such unstructured, poorly lit, complex and remote environments, automation is not always possible, and some tasks, such as geological sampling, require direct tele-operation aided by force-feedback. The operator would be on an orbiting spacecraft, and poor bandwidth and high latency and packet loss from orbit to ground mean that safe, stable, and transparent interaction is a substantial technical challenge. For this scenario, a control method was developed which ensures stability at high delay without reduction in speed or loss of positioning accuracy. At the same time, a new level of safety is achieved not only through force-feedback itself but also through 1an intrinsic property of the approach preventing hard impacts. Based on this method, a tele-exploration scenario was simulated in the Analog-1 experiment with an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) using a 6-degreeof-freedom (DoF) force-feedback (F-F) capable haptic input device to control a mobile robot with manipulator on Earth to collect rock samples. The 6-DoF FF tele-manipulation from space was performed at a round-trip communication delay constantly between 770 and 850 milliseconds and an average packet loss of 1.27%. This experiment showcases the feasibility of a complete space exploration scenario via haptic tele-manipulation under space-flight conditions. The results underline the benefits of this control method for safe and accurate interactions, and of haptic feedback in general