"System Initiatives for Lunar Surface Exploration"
Background:
Recently, this Office
at GSFC received a charge number for three manyears of civil servant labor
for the purpose of developing ways to test new technologies, which could be
applied to lunar surface exploration. In the process we intend to develop
robotic mechanisms that will enable our scientists to conduct research in
remote and hostile environments unattended and yet monitored and controlled
via the Internet. This office has accomplished 90 projects over the past 20
years, each requiring innovation and initiative from a small, turned-on team
operating with limited resources on a tight schedule. We plan to continue
this approach, where we rally the support of internal and external partners
for the common good and in particular develop a mutually beneficial partnerships
with universities.
Program Description:
Several University engineering students
completed a summer intern project, which is now the basis for two accredited
school projects at Michigan State University
(MSU). The students produced a mobile, wheeled robotic platform that is
about 2x2x1 ft and the basic system design for using it in simulated lunar
surface exploration projects. Now engineers at GSFC operating under this DDF
labor WBS are building several technology demonstrations for this platform.
The first demonstration is a scaled-down version of the Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) robotic docking system. The HST system utilizes
a very expensive 7 degree of freedom (DOF) robotic arm costing many millions
of dollars. We will be simulating this with an inexpensive but customized
smaller arm and facsimiles of the docking components. We are also using the
Capaciflector technology that GSFC has been developing for close-in collision
avoidance maneuvers. We are looking to demonstrate lower cost spin-off applications
of this technology.
Five students have formed one team to develop the Command and Data Handling
subsystem, the Power distribution subsystem, and the GUI for controlling the
robot remotely via the Internet. Their designs will become the standard interfaces
for all future deliverable payloads. A second team of five will develop the
robotic docking sensor circuitry and software, and demonstrate the tele-robotic
docking maneuver via the Internet.
When we take this robotic platform to Antarctica in January 2005, various
universities will be able to operate it and the robotic arm. In the docking
maneuver they will be using both Capaciflector sensors and X10 video cameras
mounted on a payload that simulates the HST COS instrument package. They will
send the commands from a GUI they develop to Antarctica via the Internet,
through a secure link at GSFC. The user-friendly commands developed by MSU
will be deciphered in a laptop using Lab View for LINUX and from there go
wireless into the field where our robots are operating. This is similar to
the communication link we will someday have when tele-robotically operating
devices on the Moon from Earth. The Single Board Computer on our wheeled robot
will execute the commands and return telemetry as appropriate. During the
docking maneuver, the operator will receive video snapshots from the two X10
cameras mounted on opposite corners of the HST instrument box. The operator
can use both the video and the Capaciflector signals to perform the maneuver,
just as HST will be doing. We envision a follow-on school project in the Spring
where a student team will automate the docking maneuver using artificial intelligence
to act on the capaciflector signals and adjust the orientation etc throughout
the docking maneuver. All the operator will need to do then is to get the
arm to put the box close enough to the receptacle, and then he can switch
to the auto docking function.
Additional experiments are also being developed at GSFC and at MSU for the
first field opportunity in Antarctica. These include an instrument pointing
platform that will enable remote control of an optical telescope. GSFC Code
916 will provide a UV Spectrometer and the pointing platform and MSU will
develop the commands and data handling for it. Code 685 is offering a new
type of walking robot called a Tetrahedron Walker, which we will carry to
Antarctica as well. Our MSU communications system and our central video system
will be used by NASA Scientists to operate and monitor their Tetwalker on
a Lunar-analog terrain with comparable connectivity delays.
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