EVA Waypointing:

As indicated on the Mobile Agents Field Test Schedule, from 14:00 - 16:00 the ERA team was to capture waypoints to Pooh's Corner, in preparation for Boudreaux's autonomous EVA on Tuesday (Click Here for the Mobile Agents Field Test Schedule on the web). To accomplish this task the ERA team had to get the InfoPack ready for capturing differential GPS coordinates for planning Boudreaux's path to Pooh's Corner. The InfoPack is a metal backpack containing differential GPS equipment, as well as a computer to log the GPS waypoints. To collect the 2cm accurate differential GPS coordinates, the InfoPack communicates over a wireless network to the ERA control console normally located in the hab. Before we left for Utah, I had double-checked that the waypoint collecting could be done without the MEX wireless network operational. This was important, because the MEX wireless network is not going to be operational until Monday afternoon. The ERA subteam lead had confirmed that they would be able to collect waypoints without the MEX wireless network in place, and thus I had put it on the schedule for Sunday afternoon as one of our first important Mobile Agents tasks to complete. It is important to realize that the MEX network is the responsibility of the MEX/IT subteam, and is not part of the ERA subteam's responsibility.

Why do we need to collect waypoints, you may ask? The ERA robot, Boudreaux, can perform autonomous path traversals with obstacle avoidance. However, this software has not been tested over long distances, and as DARPA's recent Grand Challenge competition has shown having robots traverse autonomously over long distances without intervention is a challenge that no robot can yet perform. Although Boudreaux is able to find its way from location A to location B with obstacle avoidance, we want to have location A and B be in a relative straight line from each other without large obstacles in its way, because of EVA time constraints. The Pooh's Corner area (so named by one of our EVA astronauts looking at an aerial map of the area around the hab) is located about 500m East from the hab, on the other side of Cow Dung Road. There is no traversable straight line from the hab to Pooh's Corner, and thus we need to have identified locations (called waypoints) to create an EVA path plan for Boudreaux.

Our first hick-up came soon after the ERA team started testing their InfoPack network connection. This year, to make the MEX wireless network more robust, new network equipment has been installed in both the InfoPack and the other MEX wireless network elements. Because of this, the InfoPack has to be connected to the MEX wireless network to operate. Ergo, exactly what I had been afraid of and had double-checked with the ERA subteam, was now an issue. The MEX network was not going to be operational until tomorrow. How can we do this? There was a short period of panic, but luckily the problem was quickly resolved. The resolution was simple; the InfoPack needs a particular network access point to operate (referred to as "the Cicso's"). The MEX ATV has such an access point, and by putting the ERA control console computer on the ATV, and have the ERA console operator follow us on the ATV to Pooh's Corner, a wireless network connection between the InfoPack and the ERA console computer could be established.

This turned out to be an easy solution, and we thus started our "GPS Waypointing for Pooh's Corner EVA" task on time. Bill Clancey and I had done a survey of Pooh's Corner the day before, and thus I was familiar with the path we had to take. Jeff Graham, the ERA subteam lead, carried the InfoPack following me. At every significant direction change in the path, Jeff ordered Kim Tyree (the ERA console operator and ATV driver) to capture his current location as a waypoint. Doing so for the entire path to and at Pooh's Corner, we created 24 waypoints for Boudreaux's path for its autonomous EVA to Pooh's Corner.

We finished our waypointing task within the specified two hours on the schedule. The task took us about an hour and a half, and we were back at the hab around 15:45. After this, it was my task to create the Pooh's Corner locations in the EVA planning tool in the hab. After receiving the captured GPS waypoint data from Kim, I had to manually enter the 24 waypoints in the EVA Planning tool. I finished this task in about an hour and a half, including a couple of machine reboots. We are now ready to create an EVA plan for Boudreaux using some or all of the defined waypoint locations. The crew will do this on Tuesday morning, the first EVA day of our field test.

In these first two tasks we have already identified a new requirement for next year; the two tasks described in this report obviously need to be automated as best we can for next year, so that it will take a minimal manual effort to create waypoints in the EVA planning tool.