At the end of 2018, around 30 scientists from eleven countries traveled to the Moroccan desert. They were joined by researchers from the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). The researchers gathered findings for the EU project 'Peraspera' of the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the national space agencies of France, Spain, Italy and the UK. In the project, a research roadmap for the 'Strategic Research Cluster on Space Robotics Technologies' is being developed and monitored in several sub-projects. Important components of the cluster are extensive tests and evaluation measures for the developed technologies.

Field tests in the desert

The tests were carried out in the Erfoud region near the Algerian border, known to tourists for its impressive sand dunes. With almost vegetation-free stony deserts and reddish mountain ridges, the landscape is very similar to that of Mars. This makes it ideal for field tests under real operating conditions. The research team was able to put robots, sensors and software through their paces. "Only through such field tests can we be sure that the software and hardware we have developed will work as planned under the harsh environmental conditions on Mars and the moon," emphasizes Gianfranco Visentin, coordinator of the Peraspera project and head of the Automation and Robotics Department at the European Space Agency ESA.

The team used the first two weeks to prepare hardware and software systems in a workshop for use in the field. With the help of a flying drone, a detailed digital elevation map of the test area was created. At the end of November, the researchers moved to a base camp in the desert near Rissani. There, the new software technologies for autonomy and data fusion were tested in the 'Ergo' and 'InFuse' sub-projects.

Driving rover masters the task

In the 'Facilitators' sub-project, coordinated by DFKI and led by the Spanish company GMV, the developed software was tested. The hybrid walking and driving rover Sherpa TT from DFKI, which represents a new generation of space robots, served as a test platform for the software. The robot pair Minni and Manna from CNRS-LAAS in Toulouse and a handheld central rover unit from DLR Oberpfaffenhofen were also used. The Sherpa TT succeeded in completing an autonomous long-distance mission with the help of the new software. The driving rover covered a distance of 1.3 km over steep slopes and ravines before successfully taking a ground sample at its destination.

Together with the altitude map, the data collected by the rover represents a comprehensive test data set. This enabled the research partners to demonstrate that the software modules developed work under Mars-like conditions, but also to collect a broad database for further research work. The tested technologies will now serve as core components for more complex robotics applications. Their development is planned from 2019 to 2021 as part of another series of EU-funded projects.