Table of Contents

Avatar - Explore

The Mars landscape: an extremely dry terrain of rust-red dust, scattered rocks and ancient grooves. Unyielding and inhospitable, no one has set foot on its surface-that is, no human. Zooming along this forbidding site, circumnavigating jagged stones and yawning craters, a boxy and toy-like, four-wheeled rover scans the terrain for a possible geothermal source. Remotely assisted by an astronaut orbiting the red planet, the rover is an autonomous worker, the perfect pilgrim for a harsh and hostile environment.

But there is a caveat to this scenario: this Mars landscape is actually a simulated environment, called the Mars Emulation Terrain, located on the grounds of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in St. Hubert, Quebec. The astronaut communicating with the robot will be orbiting Earth from the International Space Station. The rover, affectionately dubbed "Red", and the Terrain, are one-third the scale of the objects they have been modelled after. They are part of the Avatar EXPLORE experiment, a project designed by the Space Technologies team at the Canadian Space Agency.

Avatar EXPLORE is the second in a series of experiments that test and develop remote communications between human operators and robots in the context of space exploration. Avatar promises to advance operational protocols, and to evolve CSA-developed communications and robot autonomy software.

During Expedition 20/21, launched on May 27th, 2009, Canadian astronaut Dr. Robert (Bob) Thirsk will interact with "Red" while aboard the International Space Station. The goal is to guide the rover to a heat source hidden on the simulated Mars environment. In real life this source could be methane, or opal, or a unique geological feature. For the sake of simplicity, the Avatar team has decided to simulate a geothermal source.

A central challenge is the constraints put on communication. File exchanges are conducted only a few times per day to simulate a low-bandwidth channel, which is a common feature of planetary operations. This forces all interactions to be conducted offline. Dr. Thirsk analyses the telemetry files received from "Red" and prepares a command file that is sent to Earth. Once the command file is received, "Red" opens it and executes its instructions. All the data acquired during execution is stored and sent back to Dr. Thirsk for another iteration of the process.

Dr. Thirsk will evaluate data through a Graphical User Interface rendered on a laptop. This interface features a map of the MET and displays the location of the rover. "Red" will transmit a 360 degree scan of its surroundings, creating a visual image of the terrain in three dimensions. Bob will analyze this data and designate destinations for the rover to navigate to autonomously. "Red" will be instructed to take more laser scans and thermal images to locate the heat source. The scans will be blended into a composite of 3-D topographical data and 2-D thermal images. Bob will create strategies according to this data, and, as if playing a game of high-tech "Battleship", will use deduction to nudge "Red" towards the thermal target.

As humans travel further into the solar system, we will increasingly rely on robots to access difficult environments. Avatar's Mars simulation will one day become a reality. By contributing Canadian technology and experience now, we are improving our ability and capabilities to play a vital and dynamic role in future space exploration.