FinTech/RegTech in Space for Trustful Autonomous Robotic Interaction (FiReSpARX)

Project Description:

In just a few years, space agencies and private companies will start to harvest resources in outer space. These harvesting missions may involve multiple robots owned by different agencies or companies operating in the same area. To improve efficiency, it will be reasonable for these robots to cooperate, for instance, by providing each other with data or by offering services, such as telecommunication to earth. Yet in space, the unexpected can happen frequently, so planning cooperation between these robots in advance is not always possible. Instead, robots will need to make autonomous economic decisions, following the economic rationale of their owner company. For instance, robots will need to be able to establish the value of a certain service, bargain, and pay for it.

In the FiReSpARX project, we design market mechanisms, incentives, and governance frameworks for such economic interaction. Moreover, we implement and test a prototypical system in SnT’s LunaLab, which emulates the moon’s surface.

This research project is a collaboration with the SpaceR Research Group headed by Prof. Miguel Angel Olivares-Mendez: https://wwwfr.uni.lu/snt/research/spacer/projects/firesparx