Planetary Rover Autonomy Targeted for Lunar Exploration
Milrem Robotics has secured a European Space Agency (ESA) contract to develop tools to increase planetary rover autonomy with an eye towards future lunar missions. The current project, planned as the first in a series of projects, is for mapping the current state-of-the-art of planetary rovers, and developing those planetary rover autonomy tools using methods Milrem Robotics is currently applying in its terrestrial ecosystem of products.
"The project is the first step so that Estonian autonomy technologies can reach beyond the surface of the Earth and allow humanity to spread further into our solar system. Hopefully larger and more grandiose projects will follow.”
Mihkel Pajusalu, Head of the Space Technology Department at the Tartu Observatory and associate professor of space technology at the University of Tartu.
“Milrem is very proud to cooperate with ESA in the development of innovative space capabilities. Together with our research partner, Tartu Observatory of the University of Tartu, we can provide the best intelligent navigation solutions for lunar and planetary missions,” said Prof. Mart Noorma, Science and Development Director at Milrem Robotics.
"The project is the first step so that Estonian autonomy technologies can reach beyond the surface of the Earth and allow humanity to spread further into our solar system. Hopefully larger and more grandiose projects will follow,” said Mihkel Pajusalu, Head of the Space Technology Department at the Tartu Observatory and associate professor of space technology at the University of Tartu.
ESA’s desired outcome in this first project is an automatic mission planning system that will reduce the amount of human intervention required for various lunar operations. The developed system would be designed to automate the execution of surface operations or respective analogue activities considering input data such as remote observation data of the environment, points of interests with varying priorities and the possibility to descope or add points during runtime, operations required to be performed, rover resources and constraints, and in-situ imagery and other locally gathered data.
ESA’s Global Exploration Roadmap foresees the stepwise advancement of humankind into our solar system within the next 20 years, starting with the Moon, and using lunar missions to mature capabilities for enabling more ambitious Mars missions in the next twenty years. In this global vision, robotic missions precede human explorers to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars.
One example of such a future lunar robotic mission is the European Large Logistic Lander (EL3). The EL3 project aims at delivering cargo or a rover to the Lunar surface. In the rover option of the project, a surface rover would be controlled to collect surface samples to be returned to Earth. Then the rover could continue the exploration of the surface, covering long-distance traverses while being continuously operated by Surface Operations teams on Earth. Traverses would be in the range of 300 km (approx. 180 miles), representing a whole new class of distances not covered before by robotic space missions. Such missions would require significantly increased planetary rover autonomy and automation capabilities, such as those currently being developed by Milrem Robotics for terrestrial use cases.
The company says the current project will kickstart the development of lunar rovers in Estonia and expand the know-how and facilities needed to start developments towards future missions.
(Image provided with Milrem Robotics news release)