ROBOPS - Approaching a Holistic and Unified Interface Service Definition for Future Robotic Spacecraft

This paper describes a unified and holistic approach to the identification and definition of interface services and protocols for future robotic spacecraft. Hardware-in-the loop (HiL) demonstration results are outlined based on the implementation of selected end-to-end services. The developed communication interface is intended to facilitate the command, control and monitoring of classic satellites as well as attached robotic devices and robotic mobile platforms. Both system autonomy and distributed mission architectures are promoted. Based on an initial state-of-the-art review of current and past robotic space missions, required capabilities with respect to communication, levels of robotic control and autonomy were investigated. Thereof derived, a general categorization of possible robotic missions was developed, including the definition of roles, responsibilities and major use cases. By applying a hierarchical mission composition, a definition of functional classes and a classification of autonomy levels, a systematic and holistic categorization could be found to the definition of the required services. The concept can be applied to arbitrary hardware and deal as a standard for on-board, spacecraft-to-spacecraft and ground-spacecraft communication. Subsequently, suitable technologies for the definition and implementation of these services were analyzed and a conceptual architecture was developed. As underlying communication protocols and architectures, various options have been evaluated. A disruption-tolerant network (DTN)-based solution was chosen, however, the defined services can work over a variety of different communication protocols. For demonstration purposes, a subset was implemented within the METERON operations environment (MOE) [17] and demonstrated with two different robotic devices, a 7-degrees of freedom (DoF) dexterous manipulator and a samplecollecting rover mockup. The experiments showed that the developed architecture can successfully be used to control robotic manipulators and rovers over DTN in a standardized way.