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    • Introduction to Surface Avatar: the First Heterogeneous Robotic Team to be Commanded with Scalable Autonomy from the ISS

    Paper number

    IAC-22,B3,6-A5.3,4,x73187

    Author

    Dr. Neal Y. Lii, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Peter Schmaus, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Daniel Leidner, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Thomas Krueger, The Netherlands, European Space Agency (ESA)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Jessica Grenouilleau, The Netherlands, European Space Agency (ESA-ESTEC)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Aaron Pereira, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Angelo Giuliano, The Netherlands, ESA - European Space Agency

    Coauthor

    Mr. Adrian Simon Bauer, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Anne Koepken, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Florian Lay, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Marco Sewtz, Germany, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Bechtel Nicolai, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Nesrine Batti, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Peter Lehner, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Samuel Bustamante Gomez, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Maximilian Denninger, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Werner Friedl, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Jörg Butterfass, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Edmundo Ferreira, The Netherlands, European Space Agency (ESA)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Andrei Gherghescu, The Netherlands, ESA - European Space Agency

    Coauthor

    Mr. Thibaud Chupin, Belgium, Space Applications Services

    Coauthor

    Mr. Emiel den Exter, The Netherlands, ESA - European Space Agency

    Coauthor

    Mr. Levin Gerdes, The Netherlands, European Space Agency (ESA)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Michael Panzirsch, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Harsimran Singh, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Ribin Balachandran, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Thomas Hulin, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Thomas Gumpert, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Annika Schmidt, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Daniel Seidel, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Milan Hermann, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Maximilian Maier, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Robert Burger, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Florian Schmidt, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Bernhard Weber, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Ralph Bayer, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Roman Holderried, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Benedikt Pleintinger, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Pedro Pavelski, Germany, DLR (German Aerospace Center)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Armin Wedler, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Stefan von Dombrowski, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Hansjoerg Maurer, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Martin Goerner, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Tilo Wuesthoff, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Serena Bertone, Germany, European Astronaut Centre

    Coauthor

    Mr. Thomas Mueller, Germany, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Gerd Soellner, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Christian Ehrhardt, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Lucia Brunetti, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Linda Holl, Germany, Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Ms. Bevan Mairead, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Robert Muehlbauer, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

    Coauthor

    Mr. Gianfranco Visentin, The Netherlands, European Space Agency (ESA)

    Coauthor

    Dr. Alin Albu-Schäffer, Germany, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)

    Year

    2022

    Abstract
    As the space community continues its development toward Lunar and Martian exploration and eventual surface habitat construction, Robotics is playing an increasingly vital role to help realize these goals. To help execute these large-scale extra-terrestrial missions, a large team of robots with different capabilities and functions will be required. Furthermore, a powerful, yet intuitive user interface (UI) would be necessary to make the most effect use of the team of robots on the surface.
This paper introduces Surface Avatar, the newest series of ISS-to-Ground telerobotic experiments to be conducted in 2022-2023. Spearheaded by DLR, together with ESA, Surface Avatar continues to builds on our knowledge gained from past telerobotic experiments: Kontur-2, Haptics, Interact, SUPVIS Justin, and Analog-1. They laid the ground work on the feasibility of commanding robots with different levels of autonomy, from haptically coupled telepresence with force reflection, to task level command with Supervised Autonomy. 
Surface Avatar aims to extend the telerobotic capability by putting a team of four heterogenous robots at the command of an orbiting crew member on board the ISS. Included in this team are a dexterous humanoid robot for diverse object/sample handling and construction, a rover for long traverse exploration and sample acquisition, a miniature quad-pedal robot for exploring tight crevices and terrains, and a lander with a robotic arm for component delivery and sample stowage for return to Earth.  
The ISS crew would be able to command this team with a multi-modal Robot Command Terminal, consisting of an intuitive GUI implemented on a station notebook computer, a 3-DOF open-loop joystick, and a 7-DOF sigma.7 force reflection input device. A selected robot can be commanded as an avatar of the crew through direct command and haptically coupled telepresence. Alternatively, the crew may also delegate to the robots with task level commands, treating the robotic assets more as coworkers. Collaborative tasks will be designed of different exploration and construction scenarios to help examine the robotic team’s performance, to be carried out in an analog extraterrestrial surface habitat at DLR with multiple sites of interest.
Our experiment includes one preliminary and three sessions of ISS-Ground telerobotic experiments, set six months apart. This paper will present our initial findings from the preliminary run to be conducted in May-June 2022, and discuss the way forward in future experiment sessions.
    Abstract document

    IAC-22,B3,6-A5.3,4,x73187.brief.pdf

    Manuscript document

    IAC-22,B3,6-A5.3,4,x73187.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

    To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.