This software is a viewer program for maritime robotics software that provides a 3D visualization of the boat pose, its position history, ENC (Electrical Nautical Chart) information, camera images, map overlay, and detected tracks

Howard, Andrew B.

Huntsberger, Terrance L.

Kuwata, Yoshiaki

Wolf, Michael

NASA Technical Reports Server

NASA Tech Briefs, January 2013 21
Software
System for Contributing and
Discovering Derived Mission
and Science Data
A system was developed to provide a
new mechanism for members of the mis-
sion community to create and con-
tribute new science data to the rest of
the community. Mission tools have al-
lowed members of the mission commu-
nity to share first order data (data that is
created by the mission’s process in com-
mand and control of the spacecraft or
the data that is captured by the craft it-
self, like images, science results, etc.).
However, second and higher order data
(data that is created after the fact by sci-
entists and other members of the mis-
sion) was previously not widely dissemi-
nated, nor did it make its way into the
mission planning process.
This software allows members of the
mission community to create and con-
tribute second and higher order data
into the set of mission data for use in
planning and operations of a mission.
This kind of data is indexed and treated
in the same way as first order data. The
data is discoverable by other users and
can be part of the planning process.
The system improves the ability to share
results, make discoveries, and aid in the
operations of a mission. At the time of
this reporting, this capability was not
available in other software.
This work was done by Michael N. Wallick,
Mark W. Powell, Khawaja S. Shams, Megan
C. Mickelson, Darrick M. Ohata, James A.
Kurien, and Lucy Abramyan of Caltech for
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more
information, contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
This software is available for commercial li-
censing. Please contact Daniel Broderick of
the California Institute of Technology at
danielb@caltech.edu. Refer to NPO-48217.
Remote Viewer for 
Maritime Robotics Software
This software is a viewer program for
maritime robotics software that provides
a 3D visualization of the boat pose, its
position history, ENC (Electrical Nauti-
cal Chart) information, camera images,
map overlay, and detected tracks.
It is usually very difficult to under-
stand the internal states of onboard ro-
botics software. One common approach
is text-based printouts on a terminal, but
it is very difficult to interpret large
amounts of data printed out on the
screen. Another challenge is that the
network connection to the robot might
not be reliable, where constantly moni-
toring the data at high bandwidth is im-
possible.
This software provides a Qt-based
viewer that is intended to be used with
onboard robotics software to visualize
its internal states and the situational
awareness of the robot. OpenGL is used
to render vehicle/objects/ENC data,
etc. in 3D. It uses UDP (User Datagram
Protocol) communication to talk to the
onboard software, so each side of the
robot and the viewer program can be
stopped and started at any time, and
the performance degrades graciously
over lossy wireless communications
links. It can also save a log of the viewer
messages and replay at various speeds,
so that it can reconstruct and analyze
what happens in the field trials. Other
features include QuickTime-based
movie creation, overlay of maps, and
display of ENC objects.
This software is easily adopted by
other robotics projects. It serves as an
engineering display for software debug-
ging/monitoring, and also a tool to ex-
plain to sponsors/customers what the
onboard navigation/perception/con-
trol algorithms are doing.
This work was done by Yoshiaki Kuwata,
Michael Wolf, Terrance L. Huntsberger, and
Andrew B. Howard of Caltech for NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Further information is
contained in a TSP (see page 1). NPO-48126
Stackfile Database 
This software provides storage re-
trieval and analysis functionality for
managing satellite altimetry data. It im-
proves the efficiency and analysis capa-
bilities of existing database software with
improved flexibility and documentation.
It offers flexibility in the type of data that
can be stored. There is efficient retrieval
either across the spatial domain or the
time domain. Built-in analysis tools are
provided for frequently performed al-
timetry tasks. 
This software package is used for stor-
ing and manipulating satellite measure-
ment data. It was developed with a focus
on handling the requirements of repeat-
track altimetry missions such as Topex
and Jason. It was, however, designed to
work with a wide variety of satellite meas-
urement data [e.g., Gravity Recovery
And Climate Experiment — GRACE).
The software consists of several com-
mand-line tools for importing, retriev-
ing, and analyzing satellite measure-
ment data. 
This work was done by Robert deCarvalho,
Shailen D. Desai, Bruce J. Haines, Gerhard
L. Kruizinga, and Christopher Gilmer of Cal-
tech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
For more information, contact iaoffice@
jpl.nasa.gov. 
This software is available for commercial li-
censing. Please contact Daniel Broderick of
the California Institute of Technology at
danielb@caltech.edu. Refer to NPO-48210.
Reachability Maps for 
In Situ Operations
This work covers two programs that
accomplish the same goal: creation of a
“reachability map” from stereo imagery
that tells where operators of a robotic
arm can reach or touch the surface, and
with which instruments. The programs
are “marsreach” (for MER) and
“phxreach.” These programs make use
of the planetary image geometry (PIG)
library. However, unlike the other pro-
grams, they are not multi-mission. Be-
cause of the complexity of arm kinemat-
ics, the programs are specific to each
mission.
In each case, the input consists of XYZ
and surface normal data. The output is a
multiband image, co-registered to the
input image. Each band represents a
predefined combination of arm instru-
ment and arm configuration (e.g., elbow
up, elbow down), and the value indi-
cates whether or not the instrument can
observe (see or touch) the surface at the
corresponding pixel.
This software models the arm pre-
cisely, using the same algorithms as the
flight software. It is thus uniquely suited
to determining reachability and safety of
robot arm operations. The MER RAT in-
strument provides additional informa-
tion beyond just a flag — it supplies a
“preload” value, which indicates how
much force the arm can apply at that
spot. The MER reachability program
considers collisions of the arm with ter-
rain in determining reachability; the
PHX program does not.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20130009455 2019-08-31T00:07:49+00:00Z


Remote Viewer for Maritime Robotics Software

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