Lunar Rover Remote Driving using Monocameras under Multi-Second Latency and Low-bandwidth : Field Tests and Lessons Learned

This paper outlines the Teleoperation Robotic Testbed (TRT) project, which aims at testing simple concepts of operation (ConOps) for remotely driving a rover on the Moon, under a constrained Earth-Moon communication link. The ConOps under study focuses on teleoperating a rover with very little onboard autonomy, with ground operators actively and continuously involved in the control loop. The remote control station features enhanced situational awareness tools such as predictive displays, overlays on imagery, rover trajectory plot and panoramic imagery. The main source of feedback to the operators were monocular cameras and a basic localization system that were integrated on the TRT rover. During the 2013 field testing season, the TRT was deployed in many planetary analogue sites in order to exercise the ConOps. A total of sixteen teams remotely operated the TRT rover, taking turns on three-hour driving missions and traveled a total of 5.8 km over 48 hours of operation. The results of the campaign suggest that the ConOps studied might support simple lunar driving tasks. However, the rover average speed would be low (around 2 to 4 m/min), resulting from the rover being stationary most of the time, moreover, fatigue would prevent the operators from supporting long uninterrupted operations.