Developing a Virtual Environment for Extraterrestrial Legged Robot with Focus on Lunar Crater Exploration

Abstract

In the project Virtual Crater [1], we develop a realtime capable virtual lunar testbed that makes it possible to program and test missions of lunar surface exploration and to demonstrate new development concepts. This paper presents the project goals and current approaches. An effective tool-chain to optimize system parameters by precisely modelling and simulating the given lunar scenarios close to real time is proposed. Emphasis has been laid on real-time capabilities to intuitively support the system construction and on elaborate soil contact models and the identification of the respective parameters of regolith. Using the proposed tool-chain, the high-fidelity simulation of a legged robot and the leg-soil contact are achieved.