Title : Collaborative Exploration of Planet Mars

Project Lead : Robin Wolff From : German Aerospace Center (DLR), Simualtion and Software Technology (SC) (None)

Dates : from -- to 2015-02-09 19:04:08

Description :

Motivation and objectives :
Space exploration missions have produced large amounts of data of potentially immense value for research as well as for planning and operating future missions. Such rate of valuable data acquisition can benefit from collaboration by the scientists, researchers and computer scientists from various disciplines during the analysis, which provide prospects for research breakthroughs and advancing further activities in space. To enable an efficient collaboration, coordination of their processing and relevant tools are required. However, currently expert teams, data and tools are fragmented, leaving little scope for unlocking this value through collaborative activities. The aerospace community has already begun to exploit the benefits provided by virtual reality for various purposes (including space tele-robotics, interactive 3D visualization, simulation and training). However, collaborative virtual environments have not yet been deployed widely for space projects. Advanced immersive and collaborative visualization systems have the potential for enhancing the efficiency of data analysis, simplifying visual benchmarking, presentations and discussions. This project aims to step towards an innovative collaborative workspace infrastructure for space missions that will allow remote scientific and engineering experts to collectively analyze and interpret scientific data, such as atmospheric, terrain, engineering etc., collected from satellites and rovers and support use cases, such as atmospheric data analysis, landing site characterization, and rover target selection. By combining advanced 3D visualization techniques and interactive tools in conjunction with immersive virtuality telepresence, the proposed system allows scientists, engineers, as well as members of the public to teleport themselves to distant planets and interactively explore and analyze scientific data as if they were there together.

Teams :
DLR Simulation and Software Technologys mission is research and development in software engineering technologies, and the incorporation of these technologies into DLR software projects. Current activities focus on component-based software for distributed systems, software technologies for spacecraft and software quality assurance. The main focus of the department Software for Space Systems and Interactive Visualization is on the investigation of modelling, simulation, and verification processes for the design of space systems. Beside the development of innovative approaches for Concurrent Engineering, model-based systems engineering methods are incorporated into complex frameworks to support the mission planning throughout all phases of the life-cycle of a spacecraft. This also includes developing reusable and robust software for on-board systems of a space system. Scientific visualization and virtual reality systems are important key technologies for rapid development of functional prototypes. This is the reason why the investigation and development of methods and applications for interactive and immersive environments become more and more important for the department. This aims not only at the design and evaluation of space missions but on all research activities at DLR.

Dates :
starting date : 09 June, 2014
ending date : 18 July, 2014

Facilities descriptions :
http://visionair-browser.g-scop.grenoble-inp.fr/visionair/Browser/Catalogs/THINKLAB.UK.html

Recordings & Results :
Creation of a tele-immersive extension to the collaborative immersive virtual environment for the visualisation of data-sets related to the exploration of the planet Mars.

Conclusions :
During the preparation visit and the implementation and test weeks, we were able to successfully achieve the objectives. This included a demonstration of the platform to elements of the European Commission.