Advancements in material science, manufacturing and sensor technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things have paved the way for fabricating new parts using additive manufacturing in microgravity conditions. NASA has successfully demonstrated 3D printing onboard the International Space Station (ISS), though at a minor scale. Nevertheless, the parts built onboard the ISS were returned to Earth for further testing and verification. The logistics of bi-directional transportation of raw materials from Earth to ISS and 3D-printed parts from ISS back to Earth is complex, expensive, and slow. Harnessing materials from space to establish in-orbit manufacturing as a sustainable process is both technically and economically challenging. The potential to reuse, repurpose or recycle space debris is not well studied, though there is an increasing momentum in Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions. Unlike the standard research or review paper, this is a visionary paper in which the authors explicitly address the intersection between space debris removal and in-space manufacturing. This paper defines a pathway towards implementing an operational in-orbit manufacturing and debris removal model. For the first time, the authors introduce the application of Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing (CBDM) for in-space manufacturing in this paper. The paper aims to define a roadmap towards implementing a space operational model for in-orbit manufacturing and debris removal. Future enabling technologies that will leverage the advances in robotics, automation, and Space 5.0-based solutions to create a new environmentally friendly and economically profitable orbital ecosystem are presented. The authors analyze the pros and cons of robotic ADR, upcycling and recycling space debris for on-demand manufacturing in orbit and present a systematic approach to implementing in-orbit manufacturing as a new frontier. Recommendations are made to establish an imminent Earth-independent space logistics and supply chain system for operating an orbital factory or warehouse that will help realize a suite of in-orbit manufacturing, maintenance, and assembly missions.

This paper introduces a novel application of Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) for enhancing the efficiency of the Consensus-Based Bundle Algorithm (CBBA) in multi-robot task allocation scenarios. The proposed approach in this research lies in the integration of a learning-based strategy to approximate the heuristic methods traditionally used for scoring in the CBBA framework. By employing GCNs, the proposed methodology aims to learn and predict the score function, which is crucial for task allocation decisions in multi-robot systems. This approach not only streamlines the allocation process but also potentially improves the accuracy and efficiency of task distribution among robots. The paper presents a detailed exploration of how GCNs can be effectively tailored for this specific application, along with results demonstrating the advantages of this learning-based approach over conventional heuristic methods in various simulated multi-robot task allocation scenarios.

In order to clear the world of the threat posed by landmines and other explosive devices, robotic systems can play an important role. However, the development of such field robots that need to operate in hazardous conditions requires the careful consideration of multiple aspects related to the perception, mobility, and collaboration capabilities of the system. In the framework of a European challenge, the Artificial Intelligence for Detection of Explosive Devices - eXtended (AIDEDeX) project proposes to design a heterogeneous multi-robot system with advanced sensor fusion algorithms. This system is specifically designed to detect and classify improvised explosive devices, explosive ordnances, and landmines. This project integrates specialised sensors, including electromagnetic induction, ground penetrating radar, X-Ray backscatter imaging, Raman spectrometers, and multimodal cameras, to achieve comprehensive threat identification and localisation. The proposed system comprises a fleet of unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles. This article details the operational phases of the AIDEDeX system, from rapid terrain exploration using unmanned aerial vehicles to specialised detection and classification by unmanned ground vehicles equipped with a robotic manipulator. Initially focusing on a centralised approach, the project will also explore the potential of a decentralised control architecture, taking inspiration from swarm robotics to provide a robust, adaptable, and scalable solution for explosive detection.

The demonstration of robotic technologies in real environments is essential for technology developers and end-users to fully showcase the benefits of theirs solutions, and contributes to the promotion of the transition of inspection and maintenance methodologies towards automated robotic strategies. However, before allowing technologies to be demonstrated in real, operating offshore wind-farms, there is a need to de-risk the technology, to ensure its safe operation offshore.As part of the ATLANTIS project, a pioneer pilot infrastructure, the ATLANTIS Test Centre, was installed in Viana do Castelo, Portugal. This infrastructure will allow the demonstration of key enabling robotic technologies for offshore inspection and maintenance. The Test Centre is composed of two distinct testbeds, and a supervisory control centre, enabling the de-risking, testing, validation and demonstration of technologies, in both near-real and real environments.This paper presents the details of the Coastal Testbed of the ATLANTIS Test Centre, from implementation to available resources and infrastructures and environment details.

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 monitorization and mapping works in high deeps or complex situations. The remote control by the operators supposes a great advantage to avoid personal or economic losses. However, these vehicles present some deficits in other fields as the power endurance, communications or versatility configuration. The current trends in mobility devices motivate the improvement of these points. ENDURUNS Project develops an innovative green energy system for the offshore inspections with the aim to use renewable resources. This article exposes the main advancements developed in this project regarding the current technologies in different fields. It will be exposed a resume of the novel vehicles powered systems employed. Also, it is presented the approach for the communications systems developed, given the implementation importance of the real-time remote-control. These improvements will place this project in the forefront of the marine survey technologies.

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 sustainable offshore exploration system-based innovation in two coordinated autonomous marine vehicles (surface and underwater vessels), both powered by renewable energies. This project involves great technical challenges due to the goal of zero emission performance. The communications' infrastructures are an important milestone to achieve a real time monitoring of the system by the user from the remote-control centre. The energy systems employed (solar photovoltaic and hydrogen fuel cell technologies) bring a distinguishing point with regards to the current marine vehicles market. Finally, the sensors and instrumentation implemented in these vehicles allow a high inspection capacity, where all of these are supported by a complex software customization.

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 ISRU facility construction. Therefore, the PRO-ACT (Planetary RObots deployed for Assembly and Construction Tasks) project aimed to develop a multi robot team which can act (semi-) autonomous. PRO-ACT is a European project with many partners working on space robotics technologies, the so-called building blocks. These building blocks have been implemented and extended on Mantis to cover the scope of multi-robot cooperative scenarios. To allow the different partners to execute commands without considering the robot's control framework, a communication interface was developed to provide a common and generic way to send commands and receive sensor data. It facilitates access to all robots and to their simulated counterparts. Due to the impact of COVID-19, most of the testing, including the final demonstration, was performed remotely, with robots available at the partners' premises.

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 Resource Utilisation) system tested in a lunar analogue setting. The vision of PRO-ACT is based on the extraction of oxygen from lunar regolith which serves as oxidizer for fuel and artificial atmosphere generation for habitats and 3D printing of relevant structures using regolith for construction purposes. The main goal of PRO-ACT is to implement and demonstrate the cooperative capabilities of the multi-robot system in a Moon-like environment. PRO-ACT uses three robots: Veles - a six-wheeled rover; Mantis - a six-legged walking system; and a mobile gantry. The final demonstration tests are set for early 2021. Work implementation for the final deployment on the lunar analogue comprises: 1) during simulations, the planned mission scenarios and functional tests of the sub-components are carried out, to gain results of the real systems as well as to check the function of the developed software on the involved robotic systems; 2) remote testing of the robotic elements are implemented with the goal to integrate the software developed in the project and develop the first functional tests of the robot systems with the implemented software, 3) onsite demonstration of the project in Bremen, Germany, in a lunar analogue setting. For this indoor lunar analogue environment it was decided to create and set up a testbed with regolith simulant for testing purposes. It will be possible to replicate realistic simulation conditions (eg. navigation, mobility, autonomy) as found in the moon, which are adequate to certify the project’s goals. The final demonstration will be conducted in the Space Exploration Hall at DFKI in Bremen. During the project, it was decided to build a large test field (with an area of 48m²) in front of the crater in the Hall, which will be filled with granulate/simulant (fill level 20-30 cm) in order to carry out moonlike mission scenarios with the involved robotic systems. The challenge was to find the appropriate granulate: the choice fell on using sand from the Baltic sea with grain size of 0.1-1.0mm, with the majority in the larger fraction. This simulant presents both relevant geomorphological and space exploration lunar conditions that are necessary for the certification of PRO-ACT’s activities, while complying with necessary health regulations. Other considered options included EAC-1A, the European Astronaut Centre lunar regolith simulant 1, which is a special mixture of 0.2-1.0mm (65% 0.2-0.5mm and 35% 0.5-1.0mm), but this is very dusty and hazardous to health in enclosed rooms, such as the Space Exploration Hall. It was, therefore, disregarded due to health and safety conditions. To keep lunar fidelity up to a maximum, the final demonstration setup will include, besides the referred simulant, boulders (~2m), slopes of different angles, the Hall’s crater, light/darkness conditions controlled by a light system and environmental dryness.

The ATLANTIS project aims to establish a pioneer pilot infrastructure that will allow the demonstration of key enabling robotic technologies for inspection and maintenance of offshore wind farms. The pilot will be implemented in Viana do Castelo, Portugal, and will allow for testing, validation and demonstration of technologies with a range of technology readiness level, in near-real/real environments.The demonstration of robotic technologies can promote the transition from traditional inspection and maintenance methodologies towards automated robotic strategies, that remove or reduce the need of human-in-the-loop, reducing costs and improving the safety of interventions. Eight scenarios, split into four showcases, will be used to determine the required developments for robotic integration and demonstrate the applicability in the inspection and maintenance processes. The scenarios considered were identified by end-users as key areas for robotics.

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 power pack of the USV integrates Li-ion batteries with photovoltaic panels, whilst the AUV employs Li-ion batteries and a hydrogen fuel cell. It is essential to develop a continuous monitoring ca-pability for the different systems of the vehicles. Data transmission between the devices onboard presents challenges due to the volume and structure of the different datasets. A telecommunications network has been designed to manage the operational components considered in the project. The autonomous vehicles perform measurements, providing their position and other data wirelessly. The system will generate a great volume of various signals during the survey. The Remote Control Centre needs to be interfaced with the vehicles in order to receive, manage and store the acquired data. An Underwater Internet of Things (IoT) platform is designed to establish efficient and smart data management. This study presents an exhaustive survey to analyse the telecommunication systems employed in the autonomous vehicles, including the back-end, user interface and mobile units. This paper presents the novel design of the hardware and software structure of the ENDURUNS project with regard to the literature, where its components and their in-terconnection layers are detailed, which is a novel scientific and technological approach for autonomous seabed surveying in deep oceans or in coastal areas.

PRO-ACT (Horizon 2020; https://www.h2020-pro-act.eu/) studies the establishment of a lunar base with the support of a mobile robotic platform formed by three distinct robots, with different features, based on their cooperation and manipulation capabilities. This vision will provide tools in preparation of the commercial exploitation of in-situ resources by assembling an ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilisation) system, essential for a future human settlement at the Moon. PRO-ACT’s vision of ISRU focuses on the extraction of oxygen from lunar regolith to serve as the oxidizer for fuel and artificial atmosphere generation within habitats and 3D printing of relevant structures using regolith for construction purposes – including tiles for roads and elements for shelters. The mineral ilmenite, found in lunar rocks, is the perfect target for the ISRU platform as it contains oxygen, iron and titanium as construction materials. The main goal of PRO-ACT is to implement and demonstrate the cooperative capabilities of the multi-robot system in a Moon alike environment that will be replicated at two sites, indoors and outdoors, in Europe. For this purpose, the PRO-ACT project (OG11) will also rely on the outcomes of previous space-related projects from the PERASPERA project and its Operational Grants. Therefore, PRO-ACT will: 1) Review, extend and integrate previous OGs outcomes as part of a comprehensive multi-robot system, in a Moon construction scenario, 2) Develop robust cooperation capabilities allowing joint interventions (navigation in close vicinity and joint manipulation actions) in mixed structured/unstructured environment, 3) Make the capabilities available within a CREW module, 4) Customize existing mobile robotic platforms and prepare facilities to perform tests and demonstrations in a selection of relevant scenarios of Moon construction activities (ISRU capabilities establishment; preparing dust mitigation surfaces; assembling and deploying a gantry/3D printer). PRO-ACT will show what robotic cooperation can achieve and will demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborative mission planning, and manipulation and assembly of a supporting infrastructure. Cooperative scenarios will be based on: 1) fine scale surveying of areas prior to construction work, 2) site clearing by grading stones and debris, 3) unloading equipment/construction elements and transporting them to the assembly sites, 4) assembly of specific modular components of an ISRU plant, 5) assisting partial assembly and mobility of a gantry, 6) 3D printing of modular building elements from pseudo-regolith simulant, and 7) sample assembly of printed elements to construct sections of storage, habitation spaces or dust mitigation surfaces. Following this scenario, the key robotic elements, (the mobile rover IBIS, the six-legged walking robot Mantis and a gantry) are outlined according to the corresponding mission architecture. The ISRU plant size is representative of a future lunar mission, with grasping points to assist robotic manipulation capabilities and considering reduced lunar gravity. The target of this work is to reach a Technology Readiness Level of TRL 4/5 (depending on scenarios subparts) with this approach, to enable exploration of the Moon environment in the next decade. This will be achieved and proven with the performance of the required tests and demonstrations in Lunar analogues, in order to validate the newly developed capabilities.

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 operations of seabed survey activities, either in the deep ocean or in coastal areas. The proposed approach combines a hybrid Autonomous Underwater Vehicle capable of moving using either thrusters or as a sea glider, combined with an Unmanned Surface Vehicle equipped with satellite communication facilities for interaction with a land station. Both vehicles are equipped with energy packs that combine hydrogen fuel cells and Li-ion batteries to provide extended duration of the survey operations. The Unmanned Surface Vehicle employs photovoltaic panels to increase the autonomy of the vehicle. Since these missions generate a large amount of data, both vehicles are equipped with onboard Central Processing units capable of executing data analysis and compression algorithms for the semantic classification and transmission of the acquired data.

In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is a good alternative to enable sustainability in lunar exploration. Toward this objective, Space Applications Services proposed to deploy multiple robots (IBIS, MANTIS, and a mobile gantry) on the Moon for ISRU. The two robots MANTIS and IBIS need to transport the big and heavy components of the mobile gantry to the assembly site cooperatively and assemble them. To finish the task perfectly, it is important for the two robots to get their own precise position in real-time. This paper proposes three localization algorithms that are based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), the triangulation, and the Particle Filter (PF), respectively, for the two robots. All these algorithms use as input the distance measurements from the Ultra Width Band (UWB) devices. All the three localization algorithms have been validated in different environments, including the simulated uneven terrain scenario in Gazebo and the dataset from the filed analog. Experimental results show that the EKF-based localization algorithms can get the best performance in the simulated uneven terrain scenario in Gazebo, while the PF-based one is the best with the dataset from the filed analog.

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 Fusion Framework to produce comprehensive 3D environment representations and pose estimations. The proposed software components to model this process in a reusable manner are presented through a complete overview of the framework, then the provided data fusion algorithms are listed, and through the case of 3D reconstruction from 2D images, the Common Data Fusion Framework approach is exemplified. The Common Data Fusion Framework has been deployed and tested in various scenarios that include robots performing operations of planetary rover exploration and tracking of orbiting satellites.

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 out of JSC-2A lunar regolith simulant. Solar additively manufactured samples were characterized mechanically regarding their compressive and bending properties. Moreover, samples were analyzed morphologically using X-ray tomography and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) followed by density measurements. AM for identical process parameters led to final products with different physical and chemical characteristics when performed under ambient and vacuum conditions. Hence, process parameters were optimized under each individual working atmosphere. The experimental data were further integrated into finite-element (FE) calculations. This led to the refinement of the design of interlocking building elements for lunar applications. These blocks have the potential to form structures for shielding a pressurized inflatable habitat from radiation and micrometeorite impacts or creating nonpressurized shelters for robotic machinery.