Browsing by Author "Gribok, Daniil"
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Item Design and Development of an EVA Assistance Roving Vehicle for Artemis and Beyond(50th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 7/12/2021) Akin, David; Hanner, Charles; Bolatto, Nicolas; Gribok, Daniil; Lachance, ZacharyIt seems logical that the Artemis program to return humans to the Moon should begin with capabilities at least equivalent to the last Apollo missions: specifically, a roving vehicle for crew transport. Given the intervening half-century, such a vehicle should also have advanced robotic capabilities to enhance and extend human exploration activities. Under support from the NASA Moon-to-Mars X-Hab program, the University of Maryland is developing such a robotic roving vehicle concept for Earth analog testing and evaluation. The approach taken is to design a vehicle for lunar use, then prototype the most similar vehicle possible for testing on Earth. Rather than a single vehicle for two EVA crew, probabilistic risk assessments indicated a greater utility for two vehicles designed for nominal single-person use, but each capable of carrying a second EVA crew in the event of a vehicle failure. This mitigates the Apollo-era stringent �walk-back� criteria, which limited both overall traverse distance and allowable exploration time at remote sites. Since human lunar landing systems are in preliminary design at this time, the UMd rover design was constrained to permit launching a pair on a single Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) landing mission, allowing the rovers to be pre-emplaced at the Artemis landing site before the arrival of the crew. The mobility system for the rover is designed to transport a 170 kg suited crew with 80 kg of exploration payload in nominal circumstances, and to additionally transport a second 170 kg crew as a contingency. The rover is designed for a top speed of 4 m/sec, �cruising� speed of 2.5 m/sec, with a 54 km range and peak slope capability of 30�. The paper covers design trades, prototype fabrication, and initial testing results in analog conditions with EVA simulation.Item Development and Testing of Crew Interfaces for an Advanced Unpressurized Exploration Rover(2023 International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2023-07-16) Hanner, Charles; Bolatto, Nicolas; Gribok, Daniil; Quizon, Spencer; Quintero, Rowan; Welfeld, Ian; Akin, DavidAlthough revolutionary in its impact on lunar exploration, the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) had only rudimentary navigation capabilities, and crew controls were essentially limited to go/stop and turn right/turn left. After more than five decades, rovers supporting the Artemis program will have vastly increased capabilities, and a corresponding need for more detailed and complex crew interfaces. The VERTEX rover has been developed at the University of Maryland as an field test analogue of concepts such as the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, and incorporates advanced capabilities such as active suspension, variable deck height and angle, reconfigurable payload interfaces with multipurpose electronic interfaces, and advanced controls including teleoperation and autonomous driving modes. This paper details the development and human factors evaluation of controls, displays, and restraint systems for the VERTEX rover, based on both laboratory and field testing. While advanced robotic systems are often controlled from graphical user interfaces including touch screens, the extremes of lighting on the lunar surface and effects of regolith on pressure suit gloves drive designers to greater use of discrete and dedicated control interfaces and single-function displays easy to read in both bright sunshine and darkness. Extensive human factors testing was performed to examine potential layouts for the comparatively large number of discrete displays and controls, without impacting rover ingress/egress in spacesuits. Display and control layouts are also inherently impacted by crew seating and restraints, and a focused effort was made to move beyond the unsatisfactory simple seat belts of the Apollo LRV to restraint systems which are easier to engage and release in a spacesuit. The seat design itself is strongly driven by the portable life support system, and the VERTEX seat system was optimized to accommodate a number of different backpack designs and sizes to support external test objectives.Item Development and Testing of the BioBot EVA Support System(51st International Conference on Environmental Systems, 7/10/2022) Hanner, Charles; Bolatto, Nicolas; Martin, Joshua; Gribok, Daniil; Akin, DavidWith the resumption of human lunar exploration and plans for eventual Mars landings, extravehicular activities (EVAs) in gravitational environments will again become a primary focus. Geological exploration in early missions will require daily EVAs, rather than the roughly monthly sorties on International Space Station. Even in the reduced gravity of the Moon, EVA system weight on the crew will be the predominant factor in crew performance, fatigue, and safety; the largest single item of which is the weight of the portable life support system. Under NASA NIAC sponsorship, the University of Maryland has been investigating the �BioBot� concept, using a highly capable rover to accompany each EVA crew, carrying their life support system and supplying necessary consumables via a robotically-tended umbilical. During the NIAC Phase 2 effort, a prototype BioBot system has been developed to explore the concept of remotely-tended life support. Field testing accomplished to date includes extended simulated geological traverses performed both with BioBot and with a simulated �conventional� EVA backpack-mounted PLSS. These tests examine the trade-off between decreased on-suit life support weight and increased untethered activity duration in geological and base-servicing scenarios, as early studies have shown the desirability of giving the crew the option to disconnect from the umbilical and perform short traverses untethered from BioBot. This paper presents an overview of the BioBot concept and results from field testing to date, including specifics of the component systems: the rover itself, capable of traversing any terrain suitable for walking in EVA; a robotic umbilical tending system; a spacesuit simulator capable of interfacing to the umbilical, but with some onboard life support to support independent operations as needed; and the sensors, algorithms, and software to provide robust and safe autonomous robotic operations in the vicinity of an EVA crew.