Shashank Govindaraj

Space Applications Services | SPACEAPPLICATIONS · Robotics Systems

The rapid advancement of digital technologies such as digital twins, AI and machine learning has opened up promising avenues for ecological actions, including conservation, research and restoration. These technologies offer improved monitoring capabilities that can enhance our understanding of ecological processes and biodiversity. The EU-funded DI...

The EU-funded project CoRob-X showcased how hard-to-reach areas on planetary surfaces, such as lava tubes on the moon and mining tunnels on Earth, can be explored with teams of cooperating autonomous robots. Building on technologies funded by the European Commission in a series of R&D projects under the Horizon 2020 Space Strategic Research Cluster...

Artificial Intelligence for the detection of explosive devices (AIDED) is a European project aiming to research and integrate cutting-edge technologies to; i) Identify both unconventional and conventional explosive devices, such as buried mines and IEDs; ii) Plan missions both offline and in real-time. To achieve this, the system uses AI-machine le...

Space facilities for orbital exploitation and exploration missions are increasingly requiring larger structure to extend their capabilities. Dimensions of future scientific outposts, solar stations and telescopes undoubtedly matter to expand our horizons, power our planet or explore the universe. Due to the foreseen large structures for such applic...

The growth of industrial activities in marine environment motivates the innovation and adaptation of different technologies. The development of these installations requires the use of specific devices and tools. In this line, the use of autonomous marine brings an outstanding support in several fields. One of the most common uses of them are the mo...

The project CoRob-X develops and demonstrates enabling technologies for multi-agent robotic teams to explore planetary surfaces with a focus on hard-to-reach areas where a collaborative scheme is required to efficiently explore complex environments. Exploring lava tubes is such a challenging environment and requires a team of robots able to collabo...

The development of building blocks, and standard interconnects in particular, enables promising perspectives for the assembly of large structures on-orbit. By coupling these standard interconnects with dexterous arms, it is now possible to imagine orbital robots assembling, in-situ, modular structures to emancipate from launcher constraints. Such a...

This paper describes key technologies for the use of the six-legged walking system Mantis in a multi robot team performing cooperative tasks for the construction of an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) facility on the Moon. Autonomous multi robot cooperation is one of several key technologies that hold promise for In-Situ space exploration and IS...

In the last years, the interest for offshore areas exploitation has been increased and the marine industry has been experiencing a great growth. These facts motivate the employment of autonomous marine vehicles for monitorization, survey or maintenance works. In this paper, the ENDURUNS project has been proposed. This European initiative develops a...

Exploring planets requires cooperative robotics technologies that make it possible to act independently of human influence. So-called multi-robot teams, consisting of different and synchronized robots, can solve problems that cannot be handled by a single robot. The PRO-ACT (Planetary RObots deployed for Assembly and Construction Tasks) project aim...

The ENDURUNS project is a European Research project of the Horizon 2020 framework, which has as its main objective to achieve the optimum and intelligent use of green hydrogen energy for long-term ocean surveys. The ENDURUNS system comprises an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) and an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with gliding capability. The po...

Navigation is a basic skill for planetary exploration robots. In the last years, planetary robotics navigation has become an important research field that includes all the robot capabilities such as perception, localisation, and mapping. This paper provides a novel algorithm to cooperatively localise a distributed team of robots on another planet w...

The PRO-ACT project studies, designs and develops the establishment of a lunar base with the support of a multi-robotic platform, entailing different features, tasks and capabilities. The activities are inline with the preparation of the commercial exploitation of in-situ resources and planetary exploration research by assembling an ISRU (In-Situ R...

The PRO-ACT project aims to develop key technologies for multiple robots to work cooperatively for future lunar assembly and construction tasks. This paper provides an overview of the underlying software and hardware technologies re-used from related space robotics technologies, new developments and specific adaptations for addressing project speci...

The oceans cover more than two-thirds of the planet, representing the vastest part of natural resources. Nevertheless, only a fraction of the ocean depths has been explored. Within this context, this article presents the H2020 ENDURUNS project that describes a novel scientific and technological approach for prolonged underwater autonomous operation...

Multisensor data fusion plays a vital role in providing autonomous systems with environmental information crucial for reliable functioning. In this article, we summarize the modular structure of the newly developed and released Common Data Fusion Framework and explain how it is used. Sensor data are registered and fused within the Common Data Fusio...

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most promising techniques for on-site manufacturing on extraterrestrial bodies. In this investigation, layerwise solar sintering under ambient and vacuum conditions targeting lunar exploration and a moon base was studied. A solar simulator was used in order to enable AM of interlockable building elements ou...

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most promising techniques for on-site manufacturing on extraterrestrial bodies. In this investigation, layerwise solar sintering under ambient and vacuum conditions targeting lunar exploration and a moon base was studied. A solar simulator was used in order to enable AM of interlockable building elements ou...

LUVMI is an innovative, low mass, mobile robotic payload designed specifically for operations at the South Pole of the Moon with a range of several kilometres. Over the 2 past years of the project, the key LUVMI scientific instruments (volatiles analyser and volatiles sampler) were successfully developed and validated up to TRL 5-6. In addition, a...

The world's space agencies have been considering strategies, architectures and mission concepts to explore the solar system in the frame of international cooperation. Key principles are affordability, exploration value, partnerships, capability evolution, human/robotic partnership and robustness. Private sector interest in Lunar exploration and res...

The world's space agencies, including ESA have been considering various strategies, architectures and mission concepts to explore the solar system in the frame of international cooperation. There is a consensus in that the lunar vicinity is the most appropriate next step for sustainable exploration. Key principles in said exploration are affordabil...

Autonomous underwater mapping operations are limited by onboard energy constraints in AUVs. The ENDURUNS project proposes to use fuel cells technologies to provide extended duration of AUV mapping operations. This type of mission generates large quantities of multi-beam sonar data available onboard at remote maritime locations. Satellite links can...

Underwater manipulation is a challenging problem. The state-of-the-art technology is dominated by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). ROV operations typically require an offshore crew consisting of, at minimum, an intendant (or supervisor), an operator, and a navigator. This crew must often be doubled or even tripled due to work shifts. In addition,...

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) identifies one of the first exploration steps as in situ investigations of moon or asteroids. Europe is developing payload concepts for drilling and sample analysis, a contribution to a 250kg rover as well as for sample return. To achieve these missions, ESA depends on international par...

Future missions to the Moon will require the utilization of the local resources in order to make them affordable. The EU-funded RegoLight project advances existing 3D printing technologies and methodologies for the purpose of shaping lunar regolith, a readily available resource on the Moons surface, through the means of concentrated sunlight that s...

This paper presents the recent activities of Space Applications Services for the development of force feedback arm exoskeletons based on 3D printing technologies. The paper describes the design of the exoskeleton system and illustrates its application through two different projects of slave robotic arm teleoperation, ICARUS and DEXROV, where the co...

ROV operations are expensive and there is an urge to improve on their efficiency and speed. The EU project " Effective Dexterous ROV Operations in Presence of Communications Latencies (DexROV) " proposes a solution to those needs by developing a set of hardware and software tools to support the teleoperation of ROVs over a satellite link, i.e., fro...

In the last few years, different concepts have been investigated in the context of building human-tended bases in extra-terrestrial environments through ISRU. NASA has conducted a 3D printed habitat challenge in 2015, which put international focus on the topic. Amongst microwave sintering, contour crafting and other Additive Manufacturing (AM) tech...

Fused sensory data provides decision-making processes with exploitable information about the external environment and a robot's internal state. This paper describes some preliminary work on the InFuse project to create a modular and portable data fusion system funded by European Commission's Horizon 2020 Strategic Research Cluster on Space Robotics...

The operation of a ROV requires significant off-shore dedicated manpower to handle and operate the robotic platform. In order to reduce the burden of operations, DexROV proposes to work out more cost effective and time efficient ROV operations, where manned support is in a large extent delocalized onshore (i.e. from a ROV control center), possibly...

Search-and-rescue operations have recently been confronted with the introduction of robotic tools that assist the human search-and-rescue workers in their dangerous but life-saving job of searching for human survivors after major catastrophes. However, the world of search and rescue is highly reliant on strict procedures for the transfer of message...

Search and rescue operations, in the aftermath of natural or manmade disasters, are complex and dangerous tasks that can benefit a lot from the use of robotics. Well known examples include the Fukushima and Costa Concordia accidents. However, a large gap exists between what is envisioned that robots can do, and what they effectively do in real situ...

The two FP7 projects ICARUS and DARIUS share a common objective which is to integrate the unmanned platforms in Search and Rescue operations and assess their added value through the development of an integrated system that will be tested in realistic conditions on the field. This paper describes the concept of both projects towards an optimized int...

In this paper, a Training and Support system for Search and Rescue operations is described. The system is a component of the ICARUS project (http://www.fp7-icarus.eu) which has a goal to develop sensor, robotic and communication technologies for Human Search And Rescue teams. The support system for planning and managing complex SAR operations is im...

This paper describes the features and concepts behind the Command, Control and Intelligence (C2I) system under development in the ICARUS project, which aims at improving crisis management with the use of unmanned search and rescue robotic appliances embedded and integrated into existing infrastructures. A beneficial C2I system should assist the sea...