Matthias Hellerer’s research while affiliated with German Aerospace Center (DLR) and other places

This paper summarises the first outcomes of the space demonstration mission of the ARCHES project which could have been performed this year from 13 june until 10 july on Italy’s Mt. Etna in Sicily. After the second postponement related to COVID from the initially for 2020 planed campaign, we are now very happy to report, that the whole campaign with more than 65 participants for four weeks has been successfully conduced. In this short overview paper, we will refer to all other publication here on IAC22. This paper includes an overview of the performed 4-week campaign and the achieved mission goals and first results but also share our findings on the organisational and planning aspects.

This paper was initially intended to report on the outcome of the twice postponed demonstration mission of the ARCHES project. Due to the global COVID pandemic, it has been postponed from 2020, then 2021, to 2022. Nevertheless, the development of our concepts and integration has progressed rapidly, and some of the preliminary results are worthwhile to share with the community to drive the dialog on robotics planetary exploration strategies. This paper includes an overview of the planned 4-week campaign, as well as the vision and relevance of the missiontowards the planned official space missions. Furthermore, the cooperative aspect of the robotic teams, the scientific motivation, the sub task achievements are summarised.

In this paper, the next generation of model-based visualization is introduced, the DLR Visualization 2 Library. This new real-time graphics environment for Modelica is equipped with a state of the art engine for physics based lighting calculation and high-definition render quality, simultaneous visualization of parallel running simulation models, new features like a modern streaming interface and a new, cleaner library structure. It enables the user to create graphical real-time environments for virtual commissioning of complex systems of systems and imaging based sensors. Some applications, as for example depthcamera data generation or rendering of point clouds or vectorized flow visualization are demonstrated in the use cases section of this paper.

Aircraft are highly optimized, integrated systems that operate under vastly varying conditions and provide many functionalities. The systems providing these functionalities are highly interconnected, making the design of aircraft a very complex and risky undertaking. The ever increasing complexity is a strong motivation to not only address individual disciplines, but also their integration and interactions from the earliest design stages. Multi-disciplinary modeling and simulation have been of strong interest for many years. In this paper, a highly modular framework for aircraft models and model components is presented that is able to integrate and interchange all relevant physical aspects, systems and environmental aspects. The resulting simulation enables to 'fly' an aircraft with all relevant functionalities under realistic circumstances and enables integrated design analyses, covering operational aspects and failure cases. The integrated simulation can run in batch mode as well as real-time application driving the DLR Robotic Motion Simulator.

Aircraft are highly optimized, integrated systems that operate under vastly varying conditions and providemany functionalities. The systems providing these functionalities are highly interconnected, making the de-sign of aircraft a very complex and risky undertaking. The ever increasing complexity is a strong motivationto not only address individual disciplines, but also their integration and interactions from the earliest designstages. Multi-disciplinary modeling and simulation have been of strong interest for many years. In this paper, ahighly modular framework for aircraft models and model components is presented that is able to integrateand interchange all relevant physical aspects, systems and environmental aspects. The resulting simulation enables to ‘fly’ an aircraft with all relevant functionalities under realistic circum-stances and enables integrated design analyses, covering operational aspects and failure cases. The inte-grated simulation can run in batch mode as well as real-time application driving the DLR Robotic MotionSimulator.

This paper presents the Flight Instruments and Flight Visualization Libraries developed within the DLR Institute of System Dynamics and Control. For the design of dynamic models and control systems, a visual evaluation of the dynamic simulation is indispensable for a successful design and test process. Especially when it comes to aircraft models, an overview of the overall dynamics is needed. Therefore, the presented libraries provide fast assembly of fully configurable and generic flight visualization tools in which the view positions as well as the setup of Primary Flight Displays can be chosen freely. This provides the visual components of a rapid prototyping environment which can be used in the development of flight dynamic models and flight control laws. Moreover, the camera views and displays can easily be reconfigured for each purpose and research focus area. Furthermore, the libraries can be used for desktop simulation, motion simulator experiments as well as flight testing on a real aircraft.

The current Modelica Standard (v3.3) does not support dynamic or recursive data structures. For many applications this constitutes a serious restriction rendering certain implementations either impossible or requires elaborate and unelegant constructs. In this paper we will show that support for dynamic and recursive data structures can be implemented in the Modelica IDE Dymola using a variety of advanced constructs. This proves the principle viability of the then proposed inclusion of those data structures in the Modelica Standard.

Planetary exploration poses many challenges for a robot system: From weight and size constraints to extraterrestrial environment conditions, which constrain the suitable sensors and actuators. As the distance to other planets introduces a significant communication delay, the efficient operation of a robot system requires a high level of autonomy. In this work, we present our Lightweight Rover Unit (LRU), a small and agile rover prototype that we designed for the challenges of planetary exploration. Its locomotion system with individually steered wheels allows for high maneuverability in rough terrain and stereo cameras as its main sensors ensure the applicability to space missions. We implemented software components for self-localization in GPS-denied environments, autonomous exploration and mapping as well as computer vision, planning and control modules for the autonomous localization, pickup and assembly of objects with its manipulator. Additional high-level mission control components facilitate both autonomous behavior and remote monitoring of the system state over a delayed communication link. We successfully demonstrated the autonomous capabilities of our LRU at the SpaceBotCamp challenge, a national robotics contest with focus on autonomous planetary exploration. A robot had to autonomously explore an unknown Moon-like rough terrain, locate and collect two objects and assemble them after transport to a third object – which the LRU did on its first try, in half of the time and fully autonomously. The next milestone for our ongoing LRU development is an upcoming planetary exploration analogue mission to perform scientific experiments at a Moon analogue site located on a volcano.