From single autonomous robots toward cooperative robotic interactions for future planetary exploration missions

Mobile robotics will play a key role in future space, ocean and deep sea exploration activities. Besides the actual development of the robotic systems, the different ways of commanding those systems, using technologies varying from teleoperation with the human in the loop, through shared autonomy towards highly autonomous systems, will be the main challenges of these missions. This paper describes the robotic activities of the DLR institutions within the Helmholtz projects ROBEX and ARCHES, dealing with robots for autonomous space and ocean exploration applications. Furthermore, it describes the challenges, the overlap and the synergies of those domains, the different approaches of operating robots from far distances in extreme environments and gives an outlook on future mission possibilities