Tightly - coupled coordination of multi - robot systems for Mars exploration

AbstructSite construction operations by autonomous robotic systems are essential for a sustained robotic presence and human habitation on Mars. We report on the development of a softwarehardware framework for Cooperating multiple robots performing such tightly coordinated tasks. This work builds on our earlier research into autonomous planetary rovers and robot a m . Here, we seek to closely coordinate the mobility and manipulation of multiple robots to perform an example of a site construction operation -the autonomous deployment of a planetary power station. There are numerous technical challenges in the task including the mobile handling of extended objects, as well as cooperative transporthavigation of such objects over natural, unpredictable terrain. In support of this work we have developed an enabling distributed control architecture called CAMPOUT (Control Architecture for Multi-robot Planetary Outposts) wherein mtegrated multi-robot mobiity and control mchadms are derived as group compositions and il of me basic behaviors under a task-level multi-agent planner. CAMPOUT includes the necessary group behaviors and communication mechanisms for anmlinatdcooperative control of heterogeneous robotic platform. In this paper, we describe CAMPOUT, and its application to ongoing physical experiments at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA where two rovers carry an extended payload (transport phase of a photovoltaic tent deployment mission) over uneven, natural terrain. To our knowledge, this is one of the first efforts that have been succesduuJr undertaken in such an environment.