Robotic Vision for Space Mining

Future Moon bases will likely be constructed using resources mined from the surface of the Moon. The difficulty of maintaining a human workforce on the Moon and communications lag with Earth means that mining will need to be conducted using collaborative robots with a high degree of autonomy. In this paper, we explore the utility of robotic vision towards addressing several major challenges in autonomous mining in the lunar environment: lack of satellite positioning systems, navigation in hazardous terrain, and delicate robot interactions. Specifically, we describe and report the results of robotic vision algorithms that we developed for Phase 2 of the NASA Space Robotics Challenge, which was framed in the context of autonomous collaborative robots for mining on the Moon. The competition provided a simulated lunar environment that exhibits the complexities alluded to above. We show how machine learning-enabled vision could help alleviate the challenges posed by the lunar environment. A robust multi-robot coordinator was also developed to achieve long-term operation and effective collaboration between robots.