InFuse (OG3)

Common Data Fusion Framework for Space Robotics

Scientific Leader:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Frank Kirchner (DFKI)
 
Project coordinator:
Space Applications Services NV.
 
Project leader:
M.Sc. Raúl Domínguez
 
Contact person:
robotik(at)dfki.de

Filedownloads

Project Flyer English
Project Flyer German

InFuse aims to develop a comprehensive data fusion toolset for robot sensors (aka Common Data Fusion Framework, or CDFF) that will serve in the context of many space robotics applications, on planetary surface as well as in orbit or other space environments. The InFuse CDFF will be developed relying on the expertise of partners having substantial experience with a wide range of sensors data handling and processing techniques (perception and navigation related) and a wide range of robotic applications – both in space and terrestrial conditions.

Duration: 01.11.2016 till 01.01.2019
Performing institution: German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH
Website: https://www.h2020-infuse.eu/
Partner: Space Applications Services NV., Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und, Raumfahrt, Magellium, Strathclyde University, Laboratoire d’Analyse et d’Architecture des Systèmes
Application Field: Space Robotics
Related Projects: ESROCOS (OG1)
European Space Robot Control Operating System (11.2016- 01.2019)
Related Software: pySPACE
Signal Processing and Classification Environment written in Python
Rock
Robot Construction Kit

Funding

Project details

InFuse is a European project developed in the context of the Horizon 2020 PERASPERA (Plan European Roadmap and Activities for Space Exploitation of Robotics and Autonomy) call on Space Robotics Challenges (SRC). Inside the SRC the projects are referred as Operational Grants (OG) and each one focusses to a particular open challenge in the Space Robotics development.

InFuse makes provision for a convenient and effective articulation with the other Horizon 2020  Space Robotics Challenge (SRC) common building blocks – in particular: OG1 (RCOS), OG2 (Autonomy Framework) and OG4 (Inspection Sensor Suite). The solution proposed in InFuse to wrap and handle data fusion techniques and their produced data will make their adoption easy and effective by a wide range of users, both among the SRC stakeholders and in the wider space robotics community. In particular, InFuse will not only provide access to an extensive set of robust data fusion capabilities, relevant both for On-Orbit and planetary scenarios, but will also include a data fusion orchestration and products management tool allowing to control the data fusion processes and to retrieve conveniently (on-demand) products such as maps, models of the environment or objects, science relevant data, etc.   

The potential impact of InFuse is huge, as such a tool will be relevant and useful in a wide range of robotic applications and user communities – not only in the Space Robotics SRC activities and more widely in the space robotics area, but also in many non-space domains (e.g. marine, aerial, terrestrial robotic applications). No such comprehensive data tool exists so far: InFuse will be a European asset that many industrial, research and academic roboticists in Europe (and farther) may benefit from.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/H2020Infuse

Videos

Field Trials Morocco: EU partner test new software with DFKI rover SherpaTT

By playing the video, you accept YouTube's privacy policy.

The objective of the Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) on Space Robotics Technologies funded by the European Union is to enable major advances in space robotic technologies. Among others, these technologies are needed for future robotic missions to explore the surfaces of Mars, Moon and other celestial bodies. At the first stage of the SRC implementation (2016–2019), several research & development projects ("operational grants") established core technologies for space robotic systems. Since lab environments cannot adequately simulate the harsh environmental conditions a space exploration robot will be confronted with, field tests in terrestrial Mars or Moon analogues are imperative.

Publications(9)

9 publications · BibTeX · approx. 5 KB

Download .bib

2026

2021

2020

2019

2018

  • Conference
    Raúl Domínguez, Sascha Arnold, Christoph Hertzberg, Arne Böckmann
    Internal Simulation for Autonomous Robot Exploration of Lava Tubes
    In: ICINCO 2018, Porto, PT, 144-155 · Jul 2018
  • Conference
    Raúl Domínguez, Romain Michalec, Nassir W. Oumer, Fabrice Souvannavong, Mark Post, Shashank Govindaraj, Alexander Fabisch, Bilal Wehbe, Jérémi Gancet, Alessandro Bianco, Simon Lacroix, Andrea De Maio, Quentin Labourey, Vincent Bissonnette, Michal Smí¨ek, Xiu Yan
    A Common Data Fusion Framework For Space Robotics: Architecture And Data Fusion Methods
    In: Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Madrid, ES · Jun 2018
  • Conference
    Mark Post, Romain Michalec​, Alessandro Bianco, Xiu Yan, Andrea De Maio​, Quentin Labourey, Simon Lacroix, Jeremi Gancet​, Shashank Govindaraj, Xavier Martinez-Gonzalez​, Iyas Dalati, Raúl Domínguez, Bilal Wehbe, Alexander Fabisch​, Enno Röhrig, Fabrice Souvannavong, Vincent Bissonnette, Michal Smí¨ek, Nassir W. Oumer, Lukas Meyer, Rudolph Triebel, Zoltán-Csaba Márton
    InFuse Data Fusion Methodology for Space Robotics, Awareness and Machine Learning
    In: 69​th​ International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Bremen, DE · 2018

2017

  • Conference
    Shashank Govinderaj, Jeremi Gancet, Mark Post, Raúl Domínguez, Fabrice Souvannavong, Simon Lacroix, Michal Smisek, Javier Hidalgo-Carrio, Bilal Wehbe, Alexander Fabisch, Andrea De Maio, Nassir Oumer, Vincent Bissonnette, Zoltan-Csaba Marton, Sandeep Kottath, Christian Nissler, Xiu Yan, Rudolph Triebel, Francesco Nuzzolo
    InFuse : a comprehensive framework for data fusion in space robotics
    In: Proceedings of ASTRA 2017, ESA-ESTEC, Leiden, NL · 2017
Back to the list of projects
to top