Cooperative Operation Framework for Heterogeneous Robotic Teams in Planetary Exploration

Abstract

In the field of planetary exploration, utilization of small space probes and a concept of forming a team composed of multiple heterogeneous robots are attracting more and more attention. Small robots have advantages in terms of development cost and period, and heterogeneous teams of robots with different capabilities enable more efficient, robust, and functional mission execution. However, the entire robotic system becomes more complicated and less intuitive for non-robotics experts such as scientists, who are responsible for decision-making in mission operations. As one of the solutions to the difficulty, this work proposes a new framework for mission operations with a team of multiple heterogeneous mobile robots and small teams of operators. The proposed framework enables scientists to directly interact with a team of robots and promote smooth communications between scientists and robotics experts by providing different interfaces with a proper granularity to them. The framework is mathematically formulated and programmatically implemented as a software named ROSMC (ROS Mission Control). Experiments supposing a practical planetary-surface exploration scenario with two different rovers, a multi-copter, a lander, and multiple payload boxes demonstrated the effectiveness of ROSMC from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives.