Dynamic Shared Computing Resources for Multi-Robot Mars Exploration

The NASA roadmap for 2020 and beyond includes several key technologies which will have a game-changing impact on planetary exploration. The first of these is High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC), which will provide orders of magnitude increases in processing power for next-generation rovers and orbiters (Doyle et al. 2013). The second is Delay Tolerant Networking, which overlays the Deep Space Network, providing internet-like abstractions and store-forward to route data through intermittent delays in connectivity. The third is a trend toward small, co-dependent robots included in flagship missions (MarCO, PUFFER, and Mars Heli). Taken together, these imply an increasing amount of communication and computing heterogeneity on Mars in coming decades. Motivated by these technological trends, we study the concept of Mars on-site shared analysis, information, and communication (MOSAIC) for Mars exploration. The key algorithmic problem associated with MOSAIC networks is simultaneous scheduling of computation, communication, and caching of data, which we illustrate using the three scenarios. We present models, preliminary solutions, and simulation results for two scenarios, showing how mission efficiency relates to communication bandwidth, processing power, geography of the environment, and optimal scheduling of computation, communication, and data caching. The third scenario illustrates future directions of this work.