The project has consisted of the following working packages:
WP-000 Management and OG2 Maintenance (Feb’2019-April’2021) Administrative, technical, and financial management of the project. Interfacing with the other OGs, REA and PSA. This major task extended during the whole project, from T0 to T0+27 months (tagged as WP7 in the ECAS system, it does not allow the index 0 for a task).
WP-100: Technology Review and system requirements (Feb’2019/June’2019) to assess and survey the state-of-the-art in the field of long-range autonomous navigation currently being used or developed for terrestrial and/or space-based use, and develop the requirements for both demonstrators.
WP-200: Preliminary Design and Modelling (June 2019-Nov 2019) to perform the preliminary design of the architecture. This task had a duration of 6 months till PDR (12/11/2019) in which a review was held at GMV premises. During this phase, a Trip to Fuerteventura was issued to scout for possible field test areas. Data for Ground Truth was collected for a set of areas on the island. Contacts with local authorities were also performed and the pros and cons for each possible area for the planetary field tests were identified.
WP-300: Detailed Design of Demonstrator and Test Setup (Nov 2019-May 2020) detailed design for planetary and nuclear demonstrators. SW bread-boarding/prototyping till the required level to integrate it into the rover simulator. Detailed Design validation through simulator-based simulation tests. From the moment which the Covid emergency broke out, all the meetings were held via teleconferences and the interaction in joint meetings with the partners. This phase concluded with the Critical Design Review meeting (CDR) held on 18/05/2021.
WP-400: Manufacturing, Assembly integration and testing (May 2020/Feb 2021) aimed to provide the final, integrated demonstrator of the autonomous long traverse system and the integrated model of the demonstrator as fully functional representative of space scenario (and related test equipment) ready to start the final Mars analog system tests. A preliminary integration of the avionics was performed by GMV and DFKI at DFKI facilities in Bremen, during July’2020. For the realization of the preliminary tests, two different scenarios were prepared:1) Bremen Galloprenbähn facilities: (October'2020),2) “sandbox” from DFKI (nov'2020-Jan'2021): an indoor scenario located at DFKI facilities. This phase ended at TRR.
WP-500: Test Execution and Results Correlation (Feb-2021/Apr-2021) aimed to conduct an empirical evaluation of the reference implementations of ADE for the reference scenarios (planetary and terrestrial). The field tests for both scenarios. Field tests for the nuclear were conducted at GMV facilities in Madrid (Tres cantos), meanwhile, tests for the planetary were performed in Wuhlsbuttel (Germany) The dataset corresponding to the tests was analyzed and condensed into the test reports for the planetary and the nuclear.
WP-600: DISSEMINATION: dissemination and communication activities focusing on the spread of the ADE solution. Both passive and active actions have been developed. About 30 papers/conference contributions, about 5 videos, about 20 events, as well as about 60 press / social media & TV appearances were be realized. The tests were shared via Instagram and Facebook, as well as a local German TV broadcast. Tests were video-documented and uploaded to the public website.
