Digital Twin for Analog Mars Missions: Investigating Local Positioning Alternatives for GNSS-Denied Environments
Future planetary exploration missions will rely heavily on efficient human–robot interaction to ensure astronaut safety and maximize scientific return.
In this context, digital twins offer a promising tool for planning, simulating, and optimizing extravehicular activities.
This study presents the development and evaluation of a digital twin for the AMADEE-24 analog Mars mission, organized by the Austrian Space Forum and conducted in Armenia in March 2024. Alternative local positioning methods were evaluated to enhance the system’s utility in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environments.
The digital twin integrates telemetry from the Aouda space suit simulators, inertial measurement unit motion capture (IMU-MoCap), and sensor data from the Intuitive Rover Operation and Collecting Samples (iROCS) rover.
All nine experiment runs were reconstructed successfully by the developed digital twin. A comparative analysis of localization methods found that Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)-based rover positioning and IMU-MoCap localization of the astronaut matched Global Positioning System (GPS) performance.
Adaptive Cluster Detection showed significantly higher deviations compared to the previous GNSS alternatives. However, the IMU-MoCap method was limited by discontinuous segment-wise measurements, which required intermittent GPS recalibration. Despite these limitations, the results highlight the potential of alternative localization techniques for digital twin integration.
Study design and workflow of the digital twin integration. The figure illustrates the chronological deployment of devices and sensors from left to right. Vertically, the workflow progresses from data acquisition, through preprocessing and analysis, to the final integration and synthesis within the digital twin system. The bottom image presents a visual representation of the digital twin, incorporating the proposed experimental design for evaluating alternative localization methods based on the different integrated data. Points (A–D) represent the four points of interest visited during the EVA. — Sensors 2025
(a) Experimental design and instructions for testing alternative localization methods. (b) Universal Multi-Layer Map (UMM): LiDAR scans of the surroundings with point cloud generation. The traversability map is in grey, and the terrain hazards are in red. The rover localization is shown as a color sequence. (c) Adaptive Cluster Detection and localization of the astronauts. Two astronauts close to the rover were detected. Two additional individuals were detected further away. The path of the rover is shown in yellow. — Sensors 2025
- Digital Twin for Analog Mars Missions: Investigating Local Positioning Alternatives for GNSS-Denied Environments, Sensors 2025 via PubMed
- Digital Twin for Analog Mars Missions: Investigating Local Positioning Alternatives for GNSS-Denied Environments, Sensors 2025 (open access)
Astrobiology,
