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World premiere: From AUTOMATICA direct to Mars

KUKA and DLR present previously unseen images of the red planet in a robotic flight simulator

Mars Mission

Augsburg/Munich, June 2004 – The KUKA Robot Group booth at the AUTOMATICA trade fair is opening up a whole new world to visitors, as strange as it is futuristic. Together with the DLR (German Aerospace Center), the company is presenting no less than two world premieres. First and foremost is the simulation of a flight over the red planet with the aid of a six-axis jointed-arm robot. And secondly, this is also the first such flight simulation to be based on images of the Martian surface obtained from data from the European “Mars Express” orbiter. With this endeavor, KUKA, Europe’s leading industrial robot manufacturer, is ushering in the future technology of robotics, as well as adding a touch of Sci-Fi.

In the simulator it feels like being a space traveler for real. The three-dimensional representations of mountains, craters and valleys on the surface of Mars are most realistic. They were produced using images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera developed at the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin. Just as impressive is the physical sensation that the robot conveys to its passengers through its movements. Visitors experience their virtual Mars flight in a completely darkened, seven meter high dome. On an area that is twelve meters square, the “Robocoaster” in its role as flight simulator has sufficient room to turn illusions into reality.

The KUKA “Robocoaster” (KR 500) forms the core of the flight simulator. On the robot’s sixth axis, KUKA and the DLR Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics have installed a passenger seat. From here the bold “astronaut” dives into a spectacular world. Displayed on the Vision Station installed in front of the seat, the Mars flight is portrayed as reality with previously unobtainable resolution on a giant high-resolution screen. While the Robocoaster moves through its synchronized path of motion, the simulator creates the illusion that the passenger is moving longer distances forwards, up or down, gliding through the canyons and over the mountains of the surface of Mars. The flight is accompanied by a specially composed soundtrack.

The presentation begins with a space shuttle being launched from its mother ship, leaving the orbit of Mars and flying down to the surface. The journey then unfolds over two table mountains from the Xanthe highlands in the northern region of the Syrtis-Major Quadrant. After a turn to the left, the shuttle heads back to the first table mountain, where it uses a natural ramp in the mountain to reach the mother ship once more. The flight over the Martian landscape including the time-lapse photography for the approach and departure flights takes about 120 seconds.

The impressive pictures were taken by the DLR HRSC camera during the European Space Agency’s “Mars Express” mission, which took off from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 2 June 2003. From the pictures a digital landscape model was extrapolated. Six additional multimedia presentations clearly explain how the pictures and the Mars flight simulator were produced. In addition, the Mars flight simulator also illustrates the contemporary trend towards multi-sensor robots working as assistants in the production and service fields, as well as the technology transfer from the space sector. One example of the latter is the way in which the Mars camera can be put to good use on the Earth.