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The Virtual Space Robotics Testbed: Comprehensive Means for the Development and Evaluation of Components for Robotic Exploration Missions

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Abstract

Designing robotic components and algorithms for exploration and science missions in space and on celestial bodies requires extensive preparation and testing. Due to the extremely high costs of spaceflight and space-capable hardware, design and evaluation iterations need to be performed on earth, using computer simulations as well as real test environments to make predictions about the robot’s performance on the real mission. A variety of ways to simulate single aspects of a robot like mechanical stress or power consumption in great detail are in active use. However, no truly holistic solution that evaluates overall system behavior across a multitude of disciplines has been developed to date. In this paper, we discuss the benefits of such a solution and present our virtual space robotics testbed, a framework that represents our work towards a holistic solution.

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Acknowledgments

The projects Virtual Crater, FastMap and SELOK are funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under Grant Numbers (50 RA 0913) for Virtual Crater, (50 RA 1034) for FastMap, and (50 RA 0911) for SELOK. We would like to thank our project partners form MMI, vH&S, SCISYS, CPA and DFKI for their valuable contributions to the works described in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Robot Technology, RIF e.V., Josef-von-Fraunhofer-Straße 20, Dortmund, Germany

    Gregor Jochmann, Florian Blümel & Oliver Stern

  2. Institute for Man–Machine Interaction, RWTH Aachen University, Ahornstraße 55, Aachen, Germany

    Jürgen Roßmann

Authors
  1. Gregor Jochmann
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  2. Florian Blümel
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  3. Oliver Stern
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  4. Jürgen Roßmann
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Correspondence to Gregor Jochmann.

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Jochmann, G., Blümel, F., Stern, O. et al. The Virtual Space Robotics Testbed: Comprehensive Means for the Development and Evaluation of Components for Robotic Exploration Missions. Künstl Intell 28, 85–92 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-014-0293-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-014-0293-4

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