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idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
Bremen is not called the “City of Space” for nothing. After all, the city is an important location in the aerospace sector. With the COOPERANTS project, researchers from U Bremen Research Alliance member institutions are helping to ensure that this remains the case. They have developed secure data rooms that make construction and research projects in aerospace more efficient and boost competitiveness.
Steffen Planthaber sits in the control center, a narrow room that is open to the front. A three-dimensional model of a robot appears on the screen of his laptop. The actual robot is standing less than ten meters away from him, all four wheels firmly planted on the sandy floor of the space exploration hall at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). “SherpaTT” is the name of the 150-kilogram rover intended for use in space, which can easily overcome small obstacles with its spider-like legs.
SherpaTT has already been used on various moon-like surfaces in Lanzarote, in the desert of Morocco, and in the US state of Utah. And if Planthaber wanted to, he could also send it up the steep crater landscape in the DFKI's exploration hall, which simulates a landscape at the moon’s south pole.
The model of the robot on his screen is part of a digital twin software that the computer scientist played a key role in developing. The idea is that one day, a robot like SherpaTT will actually be on the moon or Mars. In the meantime, the team is working on how data collected during such a mission can be made available to other researchers or companies working in space travel as quickly, securely, reliably, and trustworthily as possible, while tailoring this to individual needs.
The software offered by the DFKI makes this possible in a secure data room. “It's a kind of marketplace where we act as a service provider. Individual digital software services, known as Advanced Smart Services, can be booked,” explains the computer scientist. These can include environmental mapping data, seismological information, or spectral analyses – in other words, all the information collected by the robot. “Anyone who wants access to space data today has to wait an eternity. With our software, you can make it available for direct download and control who has access to the data and who doesn’t,” states Planthaber.
Nowadays, robots like SherpaTT are doing their jobs more and more autonomously, but that doesn't mean everything always goes smoothly; they sometimes get stuck in the terrain or lose their way. That’s why the software has a playback feature that lets users go back to the exact moment when an error happened and figure out what went wrong. Analyzing the errors helps to make future missions more successful.
The digital twin is part of the COOPERANTS (Collaborative Processes and Services for Aeronautics and Space) research project. It aims to accelerate digitization processes in aerospace by creating a digital ecosystem. The network connects companies, researchers, products, suppliers, and applications in a digital space. Since mid-2023, Advanced Smart Services have been developed for this purpose and made available via the Cooperants Pontus X portal, a secure data infrastructure. The exchange of data is intended to improve the efficiency of maintenance and service processes, minimize risks, reduce costs, and ultimately strengthen the competitiveness of the aerospace industry, for example in the construction of aircraft.
The high-tech industry has extremely high security standards. “But it is also incredibly documentation-heavy. A lot of paper and Excel spreadsheets are still being shuffled back and forth,” comments Tom Becker. Becker, the project manager at DFKI, together with Steffen Planthaber, implemented the digital twin for robotic applications and made it available as an Advanced Smart Service. Research and construction projects are usually carried out by different teams at different locations and in order to protect sensitive data, this involves a great deal of organization and travel. The project now brings together decentralized teams in a secure data room.
The use of data is based on the principles of Gaia-X, a European initiative that offers an alternative to the dominant cloud providers from the US and China. In an open, transparent, barrier-free, and digital ecosystem, data and services are to be made available, consolidated, shared in a trustworthy manner, and utilized, whilst data owners retain sovereignty over their data. They have the option to release their data for use by third parties at any time or withdraw said permission again.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) has provided a total of 12.6 million euros in funding for COOPERANTS. Eleven partners from research and industry, including Airbus and the Bremen-based space technology company OHB, were involved in the recently completed project. The consortium leader is the German Aerospace Center with its Bremen Institute for Space Systems (DLR IRS), which, like the DFKI, is a member institution of the U Bremen Research Alliance.
The project contribution co-developed by DLR IRS, another Advanced Smart Service, leverages the strength of augmented reality (AR), namely the interplay between digital and analog life, for the assembly or servicing of satellites and spacecraft. This technology is highly complex and is manufactured in a clean room designed to protect it from dust and other contaminants. However, the assembly instructions are often still printed on paper, which the engineers sometimes take with them into the room. “With augmented reality, we are making paper redundant along the entire production chain,” explains Dr. Caroline Lange, consortium leader at DLR IRS in Bremen. “We are avoiding errors, while simplifying and speeding up processes, thereby making them more effective.”
As with the digital robot twin, the data room provides different users at different locations access to applications and data. The digital information is then made visible in the clean room with the aid of AR glasses, for example in the form of three-dimensional work instructions. The engineers receive the information via the glasses and at the same time have their hands free to implement it.
DLR IRS collaborated closely with Radius Media, a Bremen-based company specializing in AR, to develop a digital clean room specifically for Holowork and other developments in the COOPERANTS project. This small laboratory enabled the technology to be applied in practice. The solution has also already been used in a real flight project called CALLISTO, which focuses on the reusability of rocket engines. “AR glasses show engineers exactly where cables should run and where they need to be attached,” explains Lange.
Spacecraft are becoming increasingly complex. At the same time, it is becoming more difficult to control the demand for information. “Holowork is extremely important. It helps us to improve outdated processes and enable innovation,” says Dr. Caroline Lange, who praises the cooperation between the U Bremen Research Alliance institutions in the “City of Space.” “Bremen is playing a pioneering role in the digitalization of space travel. COOPERANTS (https://cooperants.de/en/) has further deepened relationships, which can also be leveraged for future projects.”
Holowork is to be further developed technically. At the same time, the aim is to convince other users of the technology's added value, especially the major players in the industry and suppliers. “That,” says Dr. Caroline Lange, “is the next big step.”
Contact:
Merle El-Khatib
Communication und Marketing
Tel.: +49 421 218 60046
merle.el-khatib@vw.uni-bremen.de
About UBRA:
The University of Bremen and twelve federal and state financed non-university research institutes cooperate within the U Bremen Research Alliance. The Alliance includes research institutes of the four major German science organizations, i.e. Fraunhofer Society, Helmholtz Association, Leibniz Association and Max Planck Society, as well as the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.
Impact - The U Bremen Research Alliance science magazine Issue 12 (in German)
Since 2019 the Impact science magazine provides an exciting insight into the effects of cooperative research in Bremen. "Welcome to the Digital Ecosystem!" was published in issue 12 (September 2025) (in German).
https://www.bremen-research.de/en/impressions/cooperants
Manual work: Jan-Luca Kirchler controls work processes using AR glasses.
Source: Jens Lehmkühler
Copyright: U Bremen Research Alliance
One day, it will collect data in space: the SherpaTT rover
Source: Jens Lehmkühler
Copyright: U Bremen Research Alliance
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