From Space Robotics to Underwater Mining

Exploration of mineral resources on ocean floor calls for unmanned systems and machines controlled from the surface. Removing operators from the vicinity of worksites introduces many technical challenges: low situational awareness in unknown environments, complexity of operated machines, and the need for high bandwidth real-time communication. Precise maps of the worksites underwater do not exist and accurate localization of remote machines at the end of several kilometer long tethers is not straightforward. Additionally, the cost of teleoperation is high it requires highly skilled operators as the cost of an error is extremely high. These factors make it difficult to exploit the underwater resources economically and with minimum environmental damage. Challenges of operating underwater mining machinery are similar to those of robotic systems on-orbit or during planetary exploration. For space systems a combination of two approaches is used to address the difficulty of teleoperation: a) presenting virtual models of worksites and controlled hardware to operators and b) increasing the remote systems’ autonomy. Immersing the operators in virtual environments increases their situational awareness. Autonomy enables the remote systems to perform some of their tasks using on-board sensors and intelligence, control certain degrees of freedom and to operate safely with minimum operator involvement. Planning space missions and developing necessary technologies includes various structured processes, e.g., phased development, assessment of maturity and difficulty of required technologies, and analysis and management of project risks. Technologies and expertise gained in developing systems for space may be useful for autonomous seabed mining systems.