Demonstration of OceanWATERS: An Autonomy Testbed and Plan Execution Platform for Planetary Landers
Keywords: simulator, PLEXIL, testbed, executive
TL;DR: Abstract for demonstration of an autonomy testbed featuring a plan execution framework
Abstract: Space missions, whether crewed or robotic, are simulated long before they are launched. While most robotic mis-sions to the Moon and Mars have had ground controllers on Earth tightly involved in mission operations, mis-sions to more distant worlds will require a high degree of onboard autonomy due to long communication lags and blackouts, harsh environments (radiation, cold), and more limited battery and hardware life. The search for life signs and potentially habitable bodies in our solar system and beyond is one of NASA’s top priorities and science’s highest aims. Known as “ocean worlds”, bod-ies containing liquid water, such as the Jovian moon Eu-ropa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus, present the best opportunity to search for life as we know it. To this end NASA has developed the Ocean Worlds Autonomy Testbed for Exploration, Research, and Simulation (OceanWATERS). OceanWATERS is an open-source software tool that provides a visual and physical simula-tion of a lander on Europa. It is a testbed for high-level autonomy that has a plan execution layer based on the open-source Plan Execution Interchange Language (PLEXIL) and executive. Over the past several years, under NASA grants, 6 research teams in academia and in-dustry across the US have developed and demonstrated AI-based mission autonomy solutions on Ocean-WATERS. Approaches used have included machine learning, causal reasoning, and automated planning. This demonstration showcases the main features of Ocean-WATERS with an emphasis on its plan execution framework.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07K7B3RkEvQ
Submission Number: 7
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