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VaMEx

Valles Marineris Explorer - Swarm exploration on Mars

VaMEx is a highly innovative approach to developing infrastructure-less navigation technology for autonomous, heterogeneous robotic swarm exploration of the Valles Marineris on Mars   the largest canyon system in the solar system and possibly a refuge for extraterrestrial life.

Goals

Rapid autonomous, infrastructure-less navigation in difficult terrain

• Robust flight control, swarm coordination and control
• Cooperative swarm navigation
• Experimental verification with multicopters and rovers

Key Issues

Swarm

Along the Martian equator, the Valles Marineris, extends over 4,000 kilometers with a depths of 7 kilometers   the largest canyon system in the solar system and possibly a refuge for extraterrestrial life. Only a versatile robotic swarm capable of intelligent, infrastructure-less navigation can explore the slopes, gorges, canyons, and caves in the Valles Marineris to search for extraterrestrial life. It is faster, more reliable, diverse, flexible, upgradeable, and cost effective than a single highly flexible, but also expensive robotic or crewed mission. Hence, VaMEx develops highly innovative infrastructure-less navigation technology for autonomous, heterogeneous, and versatile robotic swarm exploration missions:

• Rapid autonomous, infrastructure-less navigation in difficult terrain using on-board inertial navigation systems (INS), laser scanners, and cameras of each swarm element together with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), cooperative feature extraction, and landmark based and cooperative optical navigation
• Swarm coordination and control for following a trajectory and keeping a swarm constellation
• Robust flight control handling sensor failure and degraded systems
• Cooperative swarm navigation through radio communication, relative radio localization and positioning algorithms, leap frog and return-to-base navigation
• Simulation and experimental verification of the above technologies with unmanned aerial and ground vehicles (UAVs and UGVs), i.e., multicopters and rovers.

The Institute of Communication and Navigation of DLR contributes in VaMEx to the development of:

• Swarm coordination and control algorithms for following a trajectory and keeping a swarm constellation
• Time synchronization between the swarm elements
• Radio communication to transmit scientific data and to exchange navigation information for cooperative swarm navigation
• Relative radio localization and positioning algorithms for cooperative swarm navigation
• Combining the relative radio localization and radio communication for cooperative swarm navigation
• Simulation and experimental verification of the above technologies with several rovers.

Partners

Institute of Flight Guidance, TU Braunschweig (Technical Coordinator)
Institute of Communication and Navigation, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen
Institutes of Flight Systems Dynamics and for Communications and Navigation, TU Munich

Funded by

DLR Space Administration and Bavarian Ministry of Economics, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology as collaborative project

Duration

01.04.2012 - 30.04.2015