The terrain in Valles Marineris on Mars is rugged in many places and difficult to explore with robots. The image shows a perspective from the northern Valles Marineris visualized with CosmoScout VR.
VaMEx3
As part of the VaMEx project line, the Space Agency of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is funding projects that are jointly developing a semi-autonomous swarm of robots to explore the surface of Mars. VaMEx stands for "Valles Marineris Exploration". Valles Marineris is a gigantic rift valley system on Mars that is extremely difficult to explore due to its topography. Little sunlight, rugged canyons and extensive plains pose great challenges for robotic exploration.
A semi-autonomous heterogeneous robot swarm is currently being developed as part of a larger joint project in order to be able to explore this vast terrain. The individual units move by driving, walking or flying and therefore have very different strengths and weaknesses. Exploration tasks sent to the swarm by mission control are distributed among the robots by means of an auction process and then completed largely autonomously.
VaMEx3-RGE
The High-Performance Visualization group is working on the "VaMEx-RGE" subproject together with the Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality group, the Cognitive Neuroinformatics group, the Robotics Innovation Center at DFKI, and the Institute of Microwaves and Photonics at the Chair of High Frequency Technology at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
The task of the High-Performance Visualization working group is to develop a mission control tool based on CosmoScout VR. Scientists can use this tool to identify interesting target regions and points of interest on the surface of Mars and transmit them to the swarm. The survey results are then sent from the swarm to the mission control tool and visualized in 3D.