Amadee-24-MEROP

Details

Summary

Effective interaction between the analog astronaut and a remote rover is essential to take out full advantage of the supporting asset and to ensure a successful exploration during a mission. A rover is teleoperated via the Operator Control Unit (OCU). The physical distance from the operator and the robotic vehicle leads to poor situation awareness and may cause inadequate decision-making. The OCU must be designed wisely to ensure proper human-robot interaction.

MEROP improves the teleoperation of rovers by providing a problem-solving toolbox to the OCU. It addresses two major issues: situation awareness and communication. Unexpected, autonomous action of the robot may cause operator insecurity and influences situation awareness in a negative way. The second challenge deals with communication and communication reliability between the operator and the robot. Issues concerning bandwidth or loss of communication impose constant risks, which need to be mitigated.

The expected outcome of the MEROP experiment is an improved teleoperation of robotic vehicles and the implementation of an effective visualization tool that support the flight planning team in the decision-making process.

To achieve experiment objectives, the MEROP team will implement a teleoperation interface, where the analog astronaut can choose between two interaction levels: Semi-autonomous teleoperation and direct teleoperation. Semi-autonomous teleoperation features indirect control of the robot using a virtual avatar and interface augmentation techniques. Direct teleoperation allows for the direct control of the robot to enhance situation awareness.

Experiment Data