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Astrobiology Survey of a Lava Cave at Lava Beds National Monument by a Rover Carrying a Remote Sensing Instrument Payload

We report here on a survey of a lava tube cave by a rover that is instrumented for astrobiology missions. The NASA Ames testbed rover, CaveR, was deployed in Valentine Cave in Lava Beds National Monument (N. CA, USA) during August of 2018. The rover carried an instrument package consisting of Near Infrared and Visible Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) a point spectrometer operating in 1590-3400 nm range, sensitive to H2O and -OH bearing minerals, pyroxenes, and carbonates (Roush, et al 2018); the bore sighted Drill Operations Camera (DOC), a monochrome imager illuminated by LEDs at 410, 540, 640, 740, 905 and 940 nm; a Realsense ™ depth sensor system for 3D model generation; and a high resolution DSLR stereo camera. The payload was mounted on a tiltable instrument platform attached to the left side of the rover. The rover was driven manually in the cave by field operators, following instructions from a remote science operations team, and simulating a mission concept with science-guided autonomy. A simulated mission took place for 3 days with a team of 3 scientists selecting targets and interpreting data from the payload. To begin the mission, the rover drove along one wall of the cave imaging continuously with the Realsense in 20 m cave segments, three total. At the start of each day, the images from a 20m segment and a panorama stitched from them were provided to the science team to examine. The science team used these data to prioritize specific points along the cave wall for the collection of NIRVSS, DOC, and DSLR data. The objective of the data collection was to identify and study putative biological and mineralogical features in the cave. The data were delivered in xGDS, a customized mapping, planning, and data base management software developed at NASA Ames (Lee, et al 2013). Once the targets for further observations were selected, a plan for collecting the observations (positions in the cave and pointing for each requested observation) was constructed using xGDS and delivered to a rover team to execute the science data collection plan. Acquired data were delivered back to the science team for analysis. Preliminary results from the experiment illustrate the utility of the system (rover plus payload) to study the cave geology and mineralogy and its potential for identifying biomineral features.

Wong, Uland↗

Crew Health and Performance Integrated Data Architecture (CHP-IDA) Project

BACKGROUND: Future Human Exploration missions introduce a new paradigm as crews move further from the resupply and near real-time ground support typical of Low Earth Orbit missions today. Without immediate support from ground-based personnel, exploration crews will be more reliant on inflight data and technology to respond to emergencies and anomalies. A data architecture to support a new generation of technologies, employing advanced analytical and predictive modeling techniques, is needed to enable crew autonomy. OVERVIEW: The Crew Health and Performance Integrated Data Architecture (CHP-IDA) project funded by NASA’s Exploration Medical Integrated Product Team (XMIPT) is laying a foundation for future in-flight informatics by providing a back-end architecture for collecting, storing, and integrating multiple sources of data generated by and around the crew. CHP-IDA provides a platform for common data models and Application Programming Interfaces to access, integrate, process, and display CHP data (e.g., environmental, exercise, medical, sleep, performance, etc.). This will facilitate the increased situation awareness and decision support required by the crew and remote support of exploration missions. This presentation will describe the currently ongoing effort to develop and evaluate a path-to-flight concept of the CHP-IDA software and its core capabilities. Current integrations will be discussed, including analytics for Extravehicular Activity metabolic rate and data ingestion from a multi-functional integrated medical device. The presentation will also provide examples of scenarios used to demonstrate the CHP-IDA through human-in-the-loop test bed activities as well as examples of appropriate system performance metrics. DISCUSSION: Today, in-flight data is often siloed, unsynchronized, and largely inaccessible in real time. Many data sets require manual entry and/or data transfer between vehicles and the ground. These issues contribute to risks in supporting exploration medical capabilities. The CHP-IDA is a back-end data system providing core capabilities needed for timely and meaningful data insights across CHP domains to crew and remote personnel to enable increased crew autonomy. Future work includes collaboration with additional CHP domains, new technology integrations, and further demonstrations of the IDA within different vehicle and communication latency contexts. LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. The audience will understand that the CHP-IDA is a back-end system, providing a platform to facilitate access, promote decision tools, and provide meaningful insights to crew and to remote stakeholders during exploration missions. 2. The audience will gain insight into human-centered research and activities used to discover CHP domain data needs and pain points and how this information is used to guide development of the IDA.

Exploration↗

ATTRACTOR: Toward Trustworthy and Trusted Autonomous Systems

The question of what it means and what it takes for an autonomous system to consider another autonomous system justifiably trustworthy must be addressed by all who seek to integrate intelligent machine agents into real-world operations. A satisfactory answer to this question is an essential component in accepting autonomous machine decision-making in safety-critical and time-critical environments, such as aviation. Historically, simulation platforms for test and evaluation of complex systems have proven to be effective in assessing performance and contributing to decisions on the fitness of systems to operate in current general and commercial aviation airspace. Moreover, simulations have informed the definition of safety-critical constraints. However, as machine systems progressively take on responsibilities for decision-making traditionally supplied by humans, simulations require enhancement. Mixed reality simulation that integrates real-world platforms and data or high-fidelity simulation data in a sim-to-flight paradigm provides insight into agent interaction and the rationale behind autonomous agent decision-making as well as the capacity for seamless integrated implementation, testing, and operation of systems. Strong simulation capabilities are especially important in the presence of algorithms that hold great promise in decision-making yet increase the uncertainty in the system. Autonomy Teaming and TRAjectories for Complex Trusted Operational Reliability (ATTRACTOR) is a subproject of NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) Project. ATTRACTOR’s objective is to build a basis for understanding trust and trustworthiness in multi-agent autonomous teams, and thus to inform future certification of safety-critical and time-critical autonomous systems in aviation. Because the concepts of trust and trustworthiness must be addressed in a context, ATTRACTOR has chosen Search and Rescue (SAR) in dynamic and unstructured environments, with emphasis on search, as its design reference mission (DRM). During dynamic planning and execution of trajectory-based operations, autonomous agents determine their trajectories given an assigned mission or missions and call for assistance from an appropriate teammate when needed. This experience along with the attendant human-machine and machine-machine interactions, serve as a platform for developing approaches to identifying and measuring trustworthiness and increasing trust. In this paper, we give an overview of some of ATTRACTOR’s research and development activities, findings, and ongoing work.

ATTRACTOR↗

Design concept for the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FITS)

NASA has just completed an in-house Phase B Study (one of three studies) for the preliminary definition of a teleoperated robotic device that will be used on the National Space Transportation System (NSTS) and the Space Station to assist the astronauts in the performance of assembly, maintenance, servicing, and inspection tasks. This device, the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS), will become a permanent element on the Space Station. Although it is primarily a teleoperated device, the FTS is being designed to grow and evolve to higher states of autonomy. Eventually, it will be capable of working from the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) to service free-flying spacecraft at great distances from the Space Station. A version of the FTS could also be resident on the large space platforms that are part of the Space Station Program.

Andary, J. F.↗

Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) Test Operations in 2003

NASA has identified the development of an autonomously operating spacecraft as a necessity for an expanded program of missions exploring the Solar System. The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) has been selected for flight demonstration by NASA s New Millennium Program (NMP) as part of the Space Technology 6 (ST6) mission. ASE is scheduled to fly on the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Techsat-21 constellation in 2006. Tech- Sat-21 consists of three satellites flying in a variable-geometry formation in Earth orbit. Each satellite is equipped with X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar, yielding high spatial resolution images (approx. 3 m) of the Earth s surface. The constellation will fly at an altitude of 550 km, in a 35.4 inclination circular orbit, yielding exact repeat-track observations every 13 days. Prior to full deployment, elements of the versatile ASE spacecraft command and control software, image formation software and science processing software will be utilized and tested on two very different platforms in 2003: AirSAR and EO-1 (described below). Advantages of Autonomous Operations: ASE will demonstrate advanced autonomous science data acquisition, processing, and product downlink prioritization, as well as autonomous spacecraft command and control, and fault detection. The advantages of spacecraft autonomy are to future missions include: (a) making the best use of reduced downlink; (b) the overcoming of communication delays through decisionmaking in situ, enabling fast reaction to dynamic events; (c) an increase of science content per byte of returned data; and (d) an avoidance of return of null (no-change/no feature) datasets: if there is no change detectable between two scenes of the same target, there is no need to return the second dataset.

Chien, S.↗

NASA's Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems: Development and Demonstration of Technologies Enabling Swarms and New Spacecraft Platforms with AI and Edge Computing

NASA’s Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD) expands U.S. capability to execute unique missions through targeted investment, rapid development, and flight demonstration of small spacecraft technologies applicable to exploration, science and the commercial space sector. SSDS strategically invests in technology development and on-orbit demonstrations executed across NASA, other government agencies, industry, and academia. The program’s University SmallSat Technology Partnerships initiative awards academic researchers with the opportunity to collaborate with NASA to mature innovative technology. Capabilities aligned with RTMD’s technology shortfalls and interests - power, processing, propulsion, sensors, communications, autonomous navigation, architectures, and advanced applications like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and edge computing - are prioritized in SSDS investments. These investments enable distributed, autonomous, and cooperative small spacecraft systems that support swarm missions extending beyond low Earth orbit into cislunar and deep space. This paper highlights representative SSDS flight demonstrations that mature these capabilities to enable a future operational infrastructure needed to support sustained exploration of the Moon and beyond. SSDS’s investment strategy emphasizes rapid development and on-orbit demonstration to validate spacecraft technologies required for swarms and distributed mission architectures. The Starling swarm technology demonstration mission exemplifies this approach by advancing distributed spacecraft autonomy, cooperative operations, and space situational awareness. Extended flight testing and ongoing studies of next generation swarm configurations and on-orbit space traffic monitoring and management continue to inform future swarm designs. DiskSat’s four-spacecraft demonstration mission represents SSDS’s strategic vision to expand the design space for future small spacecraft through its commitment to advance novel platform concepts that can impact how science is performed on orbit. Continuing to invest in future platforms, the notional PY12 concept is a 12-spacecraft swarm hosting neuromorphic processors and is envisioned as an on-orbit testbed for AI, edge computing, and positioning, navigation and timing technologies. SSDS also invests in single-spacecraft technology demonstrations that underpin the success of future swarm missions and accelerate the availability of validated technologies across the small spacecraft ecosystem. Examples of such demonstrations include Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-3 (PTD-3), which performed high-rate optical communications; PTD-R, which demonstrated a camera capable of simultaneous ultraviolet and short-wave infrared optical sensing; and CAPSTONE, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology and Operations Navigation Experiment, which validated autonomous navigation in cislunar space. Collectively, SSDS-funded demonstrations advance capabilities across swarms and illustrate a coordinated investment strategy to mature high-impact technologies required for autonomous, distributed, and cooperative small spacecraft systems for low Earth orbit, cislunar, and deep space applications. Technology demonstrations strengthen SSDS partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies, and promote small spacecraft community adoption of capabilities required to close technical gaps for swarm missions.

Jan Stupl↗

NASA's Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems: Development and Demonstration of Technologies Enabling Swarms and New Spacecraft Platforms with AI and Edge Computing

NASA’s Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD) expands U.S. capability to execute unique missions through targeted investment, rapid development, and flight demonstration of small spacecraft technologies applicable to exploration, science and the commercial space sector. SSDS strategically invests in technology development and on-orbit demonstrations executed across NASA, other government agencies, industry, and academia. The program’s University SmallSat Technology Partnerships initiative awards academic researchers with the opportunity to collaborate with NASA to mature innovative technology. Capabilities aligned with RTMD’s technology shortfalls and interests - power, processing, propulsion, sensors, communications, autonomous navigation, architectures, and advanced applications like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and edge computing - are prioritized in SSDS investments. These investments enable distributed, autonomous, and cooperative small spacecraft systems that support swarm missions extending beyond low Earth orbit into cislunar and deep space. This paper highlights representative SSDS flight demonstrations that mature these capabilities to enable a future operational infrastructure needed to support sustained exploration of the Moon and beyond. SSDS’s investment strategy emphasizes rapid development and on-orbit demonstration to validate spacecraft technologies required for swarms and distributed mission architectures. The Starling swarm technology demonstration mission exemplifies this approach by advancing distributed spacecraft autonomy, cooperative operations, and space situational awareness. Extended flight testing and ongoing studies of next generation swarm configurations and on-orbit space traffic monitoring and management continue to inform future swarm designs. DiskSat’s four-spacecraft demonstration mission represents SSDS’s strategic vision to expand the design space for future small spacecraft through its commitment to advance novel platform concepts that can impact how science is performed on orbit. Continuing to invest in future platforms, the notional PY12 concept is a 12-spacecraft swarm hosting neuromorphic processors and is envisioned as an on-orbit testbed for AI, edge computing, and positioning, navigation and timing technologies. SSDS also invests in single-spacecraft technology demonstrations that underpin the success of future swarm missions and accelerate the availability of validated technologies across the small spacecraft ecosystem. Examples of such demonstrations include Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-3 (PTD-3), which performed high-rate optical communications; PTD-R, which demonstrated a camera capable of simultaneous ultraviolet and short-wave infrared optical sensing; and CAPSTONE, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology and Operations Navigation Experiment, which validated autonomous navigation in cislunar space. Collectively, SSDS-funded demonstrations advance capabilities across swarms and illustrate a coordinated investment strategy to mature high-impact technologies required for autonomous, distributed, and cooperative small spacecraft systems for low Earth orbit, cislunar, and deep space applications. Technology demonstrations strengthen SSDS partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies, and promote small spacecraft community adoption of capabilities required to close technical gaps for swarm missions.

Jan Stupl↗

Autonomous navigation ability: FIDO test results

The FIDO platform of the JPL has been used to evaluate the ability of autonomous obstacle avoidance developed by JPL and CNES autonomous long range path planning. The test results show that only a very small amount of energy and computing time is used to implement autonomy and that the capabilities of the rover are fully used, allowing a much longer daily traverse than purely ground-planned strategies.

rover stereovision autonomous navigation planetary↗

An Overview of Future NASA Missions, Concepts, and Technologies Related to Imaging of the World's Land Areas

In the near term NASA is entering into the peak activity period of the Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS AM-1 /"Terra" spacecraft is nearing launch and operation to be followed soon by the New Millennium Program (NMP) Earth Observing (EO-1) mission. Other missions related to land imaging and studies include EOS PM-1 mission, the Earth System Sciences Program (ESSP) Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission, the EOS/IceSat mission. These missions involve clear advances in technologies and observational capability including improvements in multispectral imaging and other observing strategies, for example, "formation flying". Plans are underway to define the next era of EOS missions, commonly called "EOS Follow-on" or EOS II. The programmatic planning includes concepts that represent advances over the present Landsat-7 mission that concomitantly recognize the advances being made in land imaging within the private sector. The National Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite Series (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) is an effort that will help to transition EOS medium resolution (herein meaning spatial resolutions near 500 meters), multispectral measurement capabilities such as represented by the EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) into the NPOESS operational series of satellites. Developments in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and passive microwave land observing capabilities are also proceeding. Beyond these efforts the Earth Science Enterprise Technology Strategy is embarking efforts to advance technologies in several basic areas: instruments, flight systems and operational capability, and information systems. In the case of instruments architectures will be examined that offer significant reductions in mass, volume, power and observational flexibility. For flight systems and operational capability, formation flying including calibration and data fusion, systems operation autonomy, and mechanical and electronic innovations that can reduce spacecraft and subsystem resource requirements. The efforts in information systems will include better approaches for linking multiple data sets, extracting and visualizing information, and improvements in collecting, compressing, transmitting, processing, distributing and archiving data from multiple platforms. Overall concepts such as sensor webs, constellations of observing systems, and rapid and tailored data availability and delivery to multiple users comprise and notions Earth Science Vision for the future.

Salomonson, Vincent V.↗

SPHERES and Astrobee: Space Station Robotic Free Flyers

Free-flying space robots can be used when humans are present to off-load routine work, to increase astronaut productivity, and to handle contingencies. The International Space Station (ISS), for example, is a continuously manned orbital laboratory the size of a large house, which contains many thousands of inventory items and hundreds of diverse payloads and experiments - all of which have to be managed by 6 person crew. To help with this, NASA is developing and testing robotic free-flyers on the ISS. SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites) is an ISS facility with three nano-satellites designed to research estimation, control, and autonomy algorithms. SPHERES are volleyball-sized, have their own power, propulsion and navigation systems, and work on the ISS under astronaut supervision. For more than 10 years, NASA has made SPHERES available to other U.S. government agencies, schools, commercial companies and students as a platform for science, technology development, and education. SPHERES will soon be succeeded by the new Astrobee free-flying robot. Astrobee builds on the success of SPHERES, but in addition to research, the robot will also be used for housekeeping and monitoring duties without astronaut supervision. Astrobee makes extensive use of open-source (the complete software stack is available on GitHub) and is scheduled to be installed on the ISS in late Spring 2018.

Benavides, Jose V.↗

Results from the ASTERIA CubeSat Extended Mission Experiments

Over the past two years, JPL has used the ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research In Astrophysics) CubeSat as an in-flight test platform during extended missions. ASTERIA successfully completed its prime mission in early 2018, and continued to operate in low Earth orbit (LEO) for an additional twenty months. This paper describes demonstrations that were performed on the spacecraft and on the ground-based testbed during the extended mission. These demonstrations fall into three categories: Autonomy technology maturation, hardware characterization, and science discovery. Autonomy technology maturation supported three development efforts. The first shifted the spacecraft commanding paradigm from time-based sequences to Task Networks (tasknets), which allow simpler commanding and more robust onboard execution. The second demonstrated onboard orbit determination in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) without GPS. This activity used a fully-independent means of spacecraft orbit determination for Earth orbiters using only passive imaging. The third technology provided in situ hardware health state estimation using a model-based reasoning technique. These three technologies were demonstrated either in flight or on the testbed individually, and then were combined to demonstrate the capability to perform autonomous navigation on board without ground intervention, even in the presence of anomalies. Hardware characterization involved both onboard and ground-based activities. On board, nonstandard attitude control modes were commanded to characterize the spacecraft pointing jitter as a function of target brightness, reaction wheel speed, controller gain, and the number of guide stars. The results provide insights into the contribution of jitter to the ASTERIA photometry and inform the feasibility of future astrophysics small satellite missions for which jitter control is an enabling technology. On the ground, the ASTERIA Operations Team coordinated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to configure their new ground stations to communicate with ASTERIA to prove out their viability. ASTERIA used AWS ground stations for nominal operations for the last four months of the mission. Finally, ASTERIA continued to perform exoplanet science as the spacecraft was well-suited to execute long-term monitoring of stars such as alpha Centauri to search for small transiting planets. The science team also imaged a number of interesting objects including a comet, an asteroid, cities at night, and the moon, and coordinated with other projects on Targets of Opportunity for follow-up confirmations and co-observations. Throughout the prime and the extended missions, the ASTERIA spacecraft proved to be a mighty platform that “will go into history as an innovative milestone.”[1 - Zurbuchen]

Doran, Patrick↗

Benchmarking Diagnostic Algorithms on an Electrical Power System Testbed

Diagnostic algorithms (DAs) are key to enabling automated health management. These algorithms are designed to detect and isolate anomalies of either a component or the whole system based on observations received from sensors. In recent years a wide range of algorithms, both model-based and data-driven, have been developed to increase autonomy and improve system reliability and affordability. However, the lack of support to perform systematic benchmarking of these algorithms continues to create barriers for effective development and deployment of diagnostic technologies. In this paper, we present our efforts to benchmark a set of DAs on a common platform using a framework that was developed to evaluate and compare various performance metrics for diagnostic technologies. The diagnosed system is an electrical power system, namely the Advanced Diagnostics and Prognostics Testbed (ADAPT) developed and located at the NASA Ames Research Center. The paper presents the fundamentals of the benchmarking framework, the ADAPT system, description of faults and data sets, the metrics used for evaluation, and an in-depth analysis of benchmarking results obtained from testing ten diagnostic algorithms on the ADAPT electrical power system testbed.

Kurtoglu, Tolga↗

UAV Inspection of Electrical Transmission Infrastructure with Path Conformance Autonomy and Lidar-Based Geofences NASA Report on UTM Reference Mission Flights at Southern Company Flights November 2016

Flights at low altitudes in close proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure present serious navigational challenges: GPS and radio communication quality is variable and yet tight position control is needed to measure defects while avoiding collisions with ground structures. To advance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation technology while accomplishing a task with economic and societal benefit, a high voltage electrical infrastructure inspection reference mission was designed. An integrated air-ground platform was developed for this mission and tested in two days of experimental flights to determine whether navigational augmentation was needed to successfully conduct a controlled inspection experiment. The airborne component of the platform was a multirotor UAV built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and the ground component was a commercial laptop running open source software. A compact ultraviolet sensor mounted on the UAV can locate 'hot spots' (potential failure points in the electric grid), so long as the UAV flight path adequately samples the airspace near the power grid structures. To improve navigation, the platform was supplemented with two navigation technologies: lidar-to-polyhedron preflight processing for obstacle demarcation and inspection distance planning, and trajectory management software to enforce inspection standoff distance. Both navigation technologies were essential to obtaining useful results from the hot spot sensor in this obstacle-rich, low-altitude airspace. Because the electrical grid extends into crowded airspaces, the UAV position was tracked with NASA unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) technology. The following results were obtained: (1) Inspection of high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure to locate 'hot spots' of ultraviolet emission requires navigation methods that are not broadly available and are not needed at higher altitude flights above ground structures. (2) The sensing capability of a novel airborne UV detector was verified with a standard ground-based instrument. Flights with this sensor showed that UAV measurement operations and recording methods are viable. With improved sensor range, UAVs equipped with compact UV sensors could serve as the detection elements in a self-diagnosing power grid. (3) Simplification of rich lidar maps to polyhedral obstacle maps reduces data volume by orders of magnitude, so that computation with the resultant maps in real time is possible. This enables real-time obstacle avoidance autonomy. Stable navigation may be feasible in the GPS-deprived environment near transmission lines by a UAV that senses ground structures and compares them to these simplified maps. (4) A new, formally verified path conformance software system that runs onboard a UAV was demonstrated in flight for the first time. It successfully maneuvered the aircraft after a sudden lateral perturbation that models a gust of wind, and processed lidar-derived polyhedral obstacle maps in real time. (5) Tracking of the UAV in the national airspace using the NASA UTM technology was a key safety component of this reference mission, since the flights were conducted beneath the landing approach to a heavily used runway. Comparison to autopilot tracking showed that UTM tracking accurately records the UAV position throughout the flight path.

Moore, Andrew J.↗

Cooperative Exploration of Rough Martian Terrains with the "Scorpion" Legged Robot as an Adjunct to a Rover.

NASA needs autonomous robotic exploration of difficult (rough and/or steep) scientifically interesting Martian terrains. Concepts involving distributed autonomy for cooperative robotic exploration are key to enabling new scientific objectives in robotic missions. We propose to utilize a legged robot as an adjunct scout to a rover for access to difficult - scientifically interesting - terrains (rocky areas, slopes, cliffs). Our final mission scenario involves the Ames rover platform "K9" and Scorpion acting together to explore a steep cliff, with the Scorpion robot rappelling down using the K9 as an anchor as well as mission planner and executive. Cooperation concepts, including wheeled rappelling robots have been proposed before. Now we propose to test the combined advantages of a wheeled vehicle with a legged scout as well as the advantages of merging of high level planning and execution with biologically inspired, behavior based robotics. We propose to use the 8-legged, multifunctional autonomous robot platform Scorpion that is currently capable of: Walking on different terrains (rocks, sand, grass, ...). Perceiving its environment and modifying its behavioral pattern accordingly. These capabilities would be extended to enable the Scorpion to: communicate and cooperate with a partner robot; climb over rocks, rubble piles, and objects with structural features. This will be done in the context of exploration of rough terrains in the neighborhood of the rover, but inaccessible to it, culminating in the added capability of rappelling down a steep cliff for both vertical and horizontal terrain observation.

Colombano, Silvano P.↗

Stereo Combining NASA Technologies and Partnerships to Transform Current-Day Emergency Response Operations

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA’s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an overview of the STEReO project and introduces a stakeholder workshop as a three-day activity to solicit input from the community of emergency response operators and related industry representatives.

Mercer, Joey S.↗

STEReO: Combining NASA Technologies and Partnerships to Transform Current-Day Emergency Response Operations

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA?s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an informational overview of the STEReO project to attendees of the annual North American Aerial Fire Fighting conference (AFFNA 2020).

Mercer, Joey S.↗

Stereo: Combining NASA Technologies and Partnerships to Transform Current-Day Emergency Response Operations

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA's UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an informational overview of the STEReO project to the members of the US Forest Service (USFS) region 5 aerial supervisor steering committee (ASSC).

Mercer, Joey↗

Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO)

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA’s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an informational overview of the STEReO project to attendees of the AIAA Aviation conference.

emergency response operations↗