How does a member of a robotic rover swarm keep track of its own location, let alone the location of its many swarm buddies, while operating on the Moon? Astrobotic developed DALEC to meet this critical need to support autonomous robotic exploration of the Moon.
Distributed Agent Localization Estimation for spaceCraft (DALEC) software provides autonomous vehicles, spacecraft, and even astronauts with positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) data to understand their whereabouts and where other assets are relative to their location.
Units within a DALEC network use onboard ultra-wideband (UWB) sensors and cameras to estimate their position over time. Using wireless comms, all units share their location data with one another, and the DALEC software combines this data to make an accurate map of the group.
You may be reading this and thinking, “This sounds like the ‘Marco Polo’ game you play in the pool, where all the robots keep switching between being ‘Marco’ and ‘Polo’ as needed.” Frankly, you have the gist of it.
DALEC is especially useful for networks of autonomous robots because it uses “distributed” algorithms. Put simply, this means the gathered location information is shared across the entire network instead of stored in one place.
So if one rover in a swarm were to go offline, the “shared map” used by rest of the network would be preserved. Similarly, if a rover were to move out of range for a time and then return, the data it collected would be introduced to the network “map” once it was back in range
This ability to collaborate and share asset data makes DALEC-enabled networks able to autonomously conduct coordinated operations like safely navigating unknown terrain, performing construction activities, and conducting resource prospecting.
DALEC’s flexibility also allows the network to scale over time, such as when new rovers are deployed at a lunar outpost or have assets seamlessly come and go, like astronauts using DALEC data and sensors on their space suits while operating outside a habitat.
While still undergoing testing and development, Astrobotic plans to infuse DALEC into LunaGrid, the company’s future lunar power infrastructure system, so that future lunar assets and settlements will be able to utilize this powerful navigation support system.
And no, it isn’t just a coincidence; we did name this innovation after the killer robots from Dr. Who. We promise not to let them get their exterminating hands on this technology.
