The Spaceward Foundation

Challenge

VL²TR

Mars Barn!

K-12

FAQ

Rules

Very Long Latency Telerobotics

The Benchmark Challenge:

Start with a source reservoir full of water, a lower empty sink (destination) reservoir, and a set of pipes with mating ends.
Build a pipeline between the reservoirs and transfer the water to the sink reservoir.
Constraints: Initial mass of system-of-agents, communication latency.
Metric: Time of construction
All interactions with the systems are "hands-off" and through the simulated comlink.
Unlimited power is supplied to the payload container - the agents must charge from there.
The pipes are long enough that it is very difficult to pick them up from only one point.
The benchmark challenge provides a standardized metric for comparing various system-of-agents architectures.

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The Problem:

Of all the factors that make robotic operations on Mars difficult, the one immutable condition is the communication latency, and communication latency is most accute when trying to perform telerobotic operations.

Generally speaking, communication latency increases the value of autonomy and the cost of direct control. This is made obvious with the current Mars rovers, where the ability to execute complex commands such as "drive to target while avoiding obstacles and take these readings" condensed several days worth of operations into one.

The rovers, however, operate alone and in a sterile environment - other than themselves, nothing else (to the best of our knowledge) is moving. In an environment containing several robotics agents that are operating in close proximity on the same project, the ability to issue such complex commands is very limited.

For example, it is easy to tell a rover that if a certain parameter envelope is broken, it should switch to "safe mode" - basically stop what it is doing and wait for further instructions while concentrating on preventing further damage.

In a collaborative environment, however, "safe mode" is not so easy to define - what is safe for an agent may not be safe for the system-of-agents.

As robotic tasks become more complex, high-latency remote operations will become a more difficult aspect of the overall problem, especially since most of the mechanics will have been worked out by several generations of rovers.

The Mars Barn and the benchmark assembly challenge are a tool to enable engineering schools to develop the methodologies and software that will be required for complex remote logistics operations.

In the challenge, participants control their mission through the communication link, starting with egress from the lander and ending with the successful achievement of a task. Control of the mission is typically conducted from a mission control center set up at the participant's home institution. Efficient conduct of the mission control center is a major part of the task.

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