Gateway Robot Autonomous Planning Execution and Situation Awareness

Stottler Henke proposes to develop Gateway Robot Autonomous Planning Execution and Situation Awareness (GRAPES), an operational concept, system architecture, and integrated set of software components for autonomous intra-vehicular robotics, focusing on the Astrobee and/or Robonaut on the Lunar Gateway. GRAPES will enhance the capabilities of Gateway operations such as payload operations, system health management, and inventory management by providing autonomous robot services. GRAPES will also include modeling tools for specifying the planning/scheduling, task execution, situation awareness, impact assessment, and goal management knowledge used by components in the GRAPES run-time system. The development of GRAPES will leverage Stottler Henke’s autonomous systems experience and technologies, its Aurora scheduling system, and its SimBionic intelligent toolkit for adaptive task execution. During this project, we will identify and analyze system requirements, develop a concept of operations and high-level system design, develop test scenarios, and implement a prototype that illustrates key elements of the operations and design that we envision.

The primary NASA application will be autonomous payload operations and caretaking on board Gateway. However, the resulting technology can also be used to provide long-duration autonomy for other manned and unmanned spacecraft and space habitats as well as for ground-based operations.

Long-duration vehicle autonomy for next generation military command, control, reconnaissance, surveillance Facility/infrastructure surveillance (buildings, factories, roads & bridges, pipelines, power lines) Reconnaissance & Surveillance (disaster response, urban, wildfire, search & rescue) Agricultural surveillance (over/under-watering, disease, pests, nutrients levels) Long haul freight

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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