Challenges and Lessons Learned of Accomplishing the IDEFIX Locomotion Software LOCO

Kurzfassung

In the last seven years, we worked on the software for the locomotion system of the rover IDEFIX, which is developed by CNES and DLR. It is part of the Martian Moons Exploration mission (MMX), conducted by JAXA. Starting in 2018 with a few requirements on the software, most notably it has to ensure that the rover moves in the intended but safe manner, the number of requirements increased during the development. In addition to this initially demanded control allocation, in- and outputs have to be handled, housekeeping data needs to be provided and the mechatronic system has to be monitored. The sequence of feature integration was additionally edged by delivery milestones given from the superior project plan for the integration of this subsystem software into the full rover software. This all demanded agile adaptions to the software development and it is clear now that not everything could have been planned completely from the beginning on. Also, fluctuations in the developer team put some challenges to the project management. This paper presents the challenges encountered over seven years of rover locomotion software development in a research center, what we would do again and what we learned to do (even) better next time.