The “Mars Sample Return (MSR)” mission planned by NASA and ESA is considered one of the most prominent missions in international space exploration. The objective is to collect soil samples on Mars and bring them back to Earth for extensive analysis. As part of the sub-mission “Earth Return Orbiter (ERO)”, the sample container launched into Mars’ orbit is detected, tracked, and captured automatically. For this automated capturing process, a RVS3000 Dual Lidar from the company Jena-Optronik shall be used. Since the RVS3000 Dual Lidar operates with two Lidar devices in hot redundancy, this poses the risk of measurement distortions due to cross-talk between two Lidar devices, potentially leading to malfunctions. Due to the high complexity, suitable operational concepts that are employed especially for the detection and prevention of cross-talk require extensive system tests with Digital Twins in virtual operational scenarios.
The goal of ViTOS-MSR is to support this ambitious MSR-ERO mission by developing methods and tools that enable simulation-based development and validation of the Lidar-based system functions. For this purpose, ViTOS-MSR focuses on developing and implementing a Lidar-centric Digital Twin of the system. This Digital Twin is intended not only to allow for comprehensive virtual validation of the RVS3000 Dual Lidar device (including cross-talk effects and calibrated device variations) but also to provide methods for decision-making support through batch simulation. The primary work of the MMI thereby lies in research and development in the field of physical modeling of cross-talk between two RVS3000 Lidar devices as well as the extension of an existing sub-time-step simulation for physically accurate yet highly efficient cross-talk simulation on high-performance GPUs.
