In this summer, a team of robots discovered a fake Martian landscape in Germany, directed from a distance by an astronaut at the international space station. It marked the fourth and final sessions of the surface avatar experiment, to develop a collaboration between ESA and German Aerospace Center (DLR) to control robot teams to perform complex tasks on the moon and Mars.
The session introduced new levels of autonomy and complexity. NASA astronaut Johnny Kim operated two-Robot-ESA four-foot spots and DLR’s Humanoid Rollin ‘Justin-sample sampling containers to retrieve sample containers and transport them to a lander. Spot autonomy navigated the terrain, while Justin was directed through a mixture of direct control and pre-set command. The setup allowed Johnny to hand over the tasks and focus on high-level decisions, constructing on other sessions, where robots required full teleposer.
In another scenario, ESA’s Interact Rover brought DLR robot dog Burt to the entrance of a cave. After removing a boulder, Johnny deployed Burt, who then followed a defect in one of his legs. Johnny had to withdraw Burt’s Walking Algorithm in real time before continuing in the cave and detecting the Martian ice signals. This tested how operators respond to unexpected challenges and adapt to robotic systems on the fly.
The robot is controlled from the international space station using a custom-made interface developed by ESA and DLR, combining a joystick and a haptic-feedback device. The interface allows the first-individual view to the immersive teleoperation and a top-down map for the wider mission oversight. This flexibility allows the astronaut to manage many robots efficiently, balances direct control with the strategic delegation.
In four sessions, the Surface Avatar Team has refined its approach to human-robot interaction, which improves both distance and working delegation for autonomous systems. The experiment has also helped to identify which tasks astronauts prefer to directly control and which can be safely assigned to robotic systems, providing valuable insight to the future mission plan.
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