The goal of Surface Avatar is to explore multi-modal teleoperation of multiple robotic avatars on a planetary surface from orbit.
Project details
Surface Avatar is a set of space telerobotic robotic experiments led by DLR, in partnership with ESA. Its aim is two fold:
1. study the feasibility of deploying of a heterogeneous robotic team to perform collaborative tasks on a planetary surface, and 2. examine the use of a multi-modal user interface to allow the human user to teleoperate the robots as intelligent co-workers and haptically coupled avatars.
To be carried out between 2022 and 2023, different robots, including humanoid robot, a rover, a quad-pedal robot, and a robotic lander, will work as a team on the ground. They will be commanded by the crew on board the International Space Station using a computer with a graphical user interface, a joystick, and a 7-degrees-of-freedom force reflection input device.