Avatar Explore PROPOSAL NUMBERS Not available SCIENCE TEAM Erick Dupuis, Canadian Space Agency RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Demonstrate an operational and technical approach in making use of low bandwidth and short communication windows simulated using OCA up/download to support exploration of the surface of a planet using a semi- autonomous robot controlled from orbit. OPERATIONS Mission is to explore an area (on Earth) to locate a surface thermal source. One crew to use an OCA- delivered web page to plan operation offline, deciding on rover destinations and selecting the telemetry to request (because of the simulated low bandwidth). Command and telemetry both use the OCA upload/download as an offline communication protocol. One mission will span multiple passes over multiple days. Many mission variations will take place. POINTS OF CONTACT -CSA Project Manager:Erick Dupuis HardwareIBM A31p Laptop running Windows XP, internet explorer and javascript Facility/InterfacesOCA file transfers (<1MB per session) Late accessN/A Pre-flightN/A In-flight: # of sessionsMinimum 3, nominally 20 Reserve activity; 25 min/session Post-flightN/A Early RetrievalN/A Target SubjectsCanadian Astronaut Robert Thirsk Total # of Subjects Required Short-term1 crew Long-termN/A Total # of Subjects collected so far Short-term3 crew Long-termN/A Ground referenceNo

Mass up 0 kg Mass down 0 Kg AVATAR - EXPLORE – Increment 20/21 scenario DescriptionDuration Activity 1Experiment Setup2 min Activity 2Experiment Activation1 min Activity 3Experiment Execution20 min Activity 4Experiment Deactivation and Stow 2 min Activity Table JEM: US module: Russian segment: Columbus: Inc 21 (crew Thirsk) Training Inc 20 (crew Thirsk) Increment 20 Increment 21 20S19S18S 1 Oct 0911 Oct 09 Nov 09 21S Nov 09 19S2JA 27 May 0913 Jun 09 34P 24 July 09 17A 6 Aug 09 Task Listed Science Sessions (3-20) Avatar Explore Operator Station’s Course : Done by Pierre Langlois, 27 Apr 09 Were expecting a Soyuz flight, but some delays would push the earliest Russian Launch date to October, which is not acceptable. Figure shows occasions to deliver software media, uplink is an option.

Avatar POCs Canadian Space Agency –Space Technologies Erick Dupuis Pierre Langlois MSCF coordination –Glenn Ferraro PARC –Robert Waymire

Background Controlling a rover is more challenging as the bandwidth/situation awareness goes down. These cases will arise more and more as we send rovers to other planets AVATAR wants to test a supervised autonomy scenario, and identify the data that needs to be exchanged for a successful human-machine interaction

AVATAR - EXPLORE Interacting with a rover using a narrow communication bandwidth

The Rover IR Camera LIDAR Bumper with Collision Detectors Pan unit 85 cm height total 51 cm height without instruments 53 cm width 15 degrees slopes 58 cm long Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)

GUI Overview Html based, contains all mission information available to the crew Map of terrain Locations of destinations Perspective views Messages And results Mission History New Commands Image requests

AVATAR Operation Flowchart

ISS AVATAR Operation Crew receives AVATAR GUI Crew analyses data Crew requests Infrared panoramas downloads Crew sets new rover destinations Crew sends command file to ground

Status Rover ready –CSA performing end-to-end testing Bob Thirsk trained in Russia (April 2009) Procedures generated for the file handling COFR under way at CSA On track for Avatar runs starting in August

Backup Slides

ISS AVATAR Operation

Communication architecture Avatar 2 GUI Rover Ground Station USB thumb drive OCA USB thumb drive OCA Rover Commands Updated GUI

Perspective view

Destination Color Codes