Enabling Localization and Mapping for Heterogeneous Robots in Orbit-to-Surface Teleoperation Setup

Future human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) will require robotic assistance to reduce astronaut workload while enhancing research capabilities. To advance humanoid service and assistance robotics for future exploration missions, the Surface Avatar ISS telerobotic technology demonstration mission, a collaboration between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the European Space Agency (ESA), demonstrates such concepts by enabling astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to remotely control heterogeneous robots in a Martian analog environment. Reliable localization and mapping are critical for autonomous capabilities in environments where established methods, such as the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), are unavailable or unreliable. This paper presents a visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework designed for diverse robotic platforms, including DLR's humanoid Rollin' Justin, quadruped Bert, and ESA's Interact rover. DLR's stationary Enhanced LAnder Functional AssistaNT (ELAFANT) and ESA's Spot quadruped, relying on a proprietary navigation stack, are excluded from the study. ... mehrBuilding on Rollin' Justin's initial implementation, the framework was extended to robots with limited sensing capabilities using a camera-agnostic SLAM pipeline. A unified mapping approach enables consistent localization across platforms and incremental map extension, supporting real-time performance in large-scale environments. The implementation was validated in six orbit-to-ground telerobotic sessions, confirming reliable performance and scalability. Results from these sessions demonstrate the robustness of the approach and its ability to maintain reliable localization across multiple robots in a challenging, GNSS-denied setting.