A NOVEL HUMAN-IN-THE-LOOP TESTING FACILITY FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

To analyse the interaction between the piloting astronaut and lunar lander dynamics while landing on the south pole of the moon, The European Space Agency (ESA) has initiated together with Thales Alenia Space (TAS), GMV Aerospace and Defence SAU (GMV) and The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) a project entitled “Human-In-the-Loop Flight Vehicle Engineering“. For this purpose, the DLR Robotic Motion Simulator (RMS) was transformed into a novel Humanin- the-Loop testing facility for space applications. The RMS represents a new class of motion simulators being currently developed at DLR that allow for extreme tilt angles and manoeuvres. It is based on an industrial 6 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) robot arm that is mounted onto a 10m long linear axis. The system therefore has a redundant 7 DOF architecture to induce motion cues onto an attached simulator cell. A highly modular simulator cell was configured for landing on the moon with three touch screens that were used to interact with the Human Machine Interface (HMI), Throttle and Joystick instruments, a virtual window to the outside, a headset and a surveillance camera for the piloting astronaut. The joystick features 3 DOFs and the throttle features adjustable damping along with many buttons that were used as inputs to the simulation. For the Moon landing scenery, a highresolution lunar crater visualization based on DLR’s Visualization 2 library was developed. Rocks and Boulders were distributed over the surface of the simulated region of the moon according to the Size-Frequency Distribution (SFD) for moon craters. ESA astronaut and test pilot Roberto Vittori tested various lunar landing manoeuvres using flight controls algorithms developed in HITL and motion simulation, provided by GMV, and was able to experience how the spacecraft behaves in critical phases of the lunar landing and intervene to control it. In one scenario the Landing GNC Automatic Mode was set to a landing zone where there were boulders. Vittori then had the option to intervene within a certain time window and, using touchscreens, select an alternative landing site. If needed, he was able to switch to Astronaut Manual Mode and pilot the lunar lander manually as it descended onto the lunar floor. Two Manual Control strategies were tested: Full Force / Torque Control and Rate Control. Two Motion cueing algorithms for low gravity environments were tested. Further experiments are planned.