CREST Autonomous Robotic Scientist: Developing a Closed-Loop Science Exploration Capability for European Mars Missions

In common with most Mars missions, the current communications baseline for Europe’s ExoMars Rover mission exhibits constrained data links with Earth, making remote operations difficult. The time taken to transmit and react to planning data places a natural limit on the amount of science exploration that can be achieved in any given period. In order to increase the potential science return, autonomous science assessment and response is an attractive option and worthy of investigation. In this work, we have integrated technologies and techniques developed in previous studies and used the resulting test bed to demonstrate an autonomous, opportunistic science concept on a representative robotic platform. In addition to progressing the system design approach and individual autonomy components, we have introduced a methodology for autonomous science assessment based on terrestrial field science practice.