V-MARS PROGRAM

PROGRAM AIMS

V-MARS is a program spearheaded by Mars Planet ( Italian chapter of the Mars Society) which main goal is to provide an effective test bed for field operation studies in preparation for manned missions to Mars by means of VR/AR Technlogy. The program foresees the development of an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) simulation of a MARS CITY. The major advantage of such virtualization is that it will be possible to undertake training sessions with a crew that can interact with its future environment before the actual station is built. This way a more effective design of the station and associated missions and a strong reduction of costs could be obtained. The main objective of this activity will be the achievement of adequate fidelity simulations and validation of the data obtained during the training sessions so that they can be used for the design of the station itself. The program includes the development of VR treadmills (MOTIGRAVITY, MOTIVITY, BABY-MOTIVITY, which are currentely distributed under the trademark Mars Virtual Systems: www.marsvrsys.com

Other scientific objective of the V-MARS program are:
· an opportunity to review the MARS-City (www.mars-city.org) Habitat Design
· a platform for the establishment of the knowledge, methods, and standards for the design of an integrated, autonomous, crew health management system.
· a platform for Scientific missions planning / Crew training
· serving as a strong outreach opportunity.
· Technlogical transfer of the results in commercial and industrial sectors including medicine, gaming, military application.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

V-MARS infrastructure is composed by sets of virtual stations, each of them based on the following key elements:
· Immersive virtual simulations and supporting a 3D virtual reality headset (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, etc)
· Full body and hand gesture tracking
· Integration of an omnidirectional treadmill

PROGRAM SCIENCE AGENDA

The table below report a short summary of science activities performed during V-MARS program:

HABITAT MARS  Habitat Design Review.
V-MARS STATIONFeedback on current V-MARS  station design
COMMUNICATIONAudio and video communication setup and test
HEALTH MONCrew health monitoring
TELEMEDICINESimulated telemedical support session
ATV DESIGNVirtual Reality based design of an ATV vehicle
SIM / EVASimulation Scenarios / EVA missions.
REDUCED GRAVITYExperimentation has been made on simulating Martian reduced

 

gravity environments via extensions of the Motivity /Motigravity omnidirectional treadmill

SPACE SUITA set of technical tests aiming at assessing the use of space suit

 

during the virtual simulation.