Japan’s LEV-1 Lunar Robot Demonstrates Autonomous Control with an FPGA-Based RISC-V System

At RISC-V Summit Europe 2026, held in Bologna, Italy, from June 8 to 12, Professor KUNII Yasuharu of Chuo University(Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Communication Engineering), Professor YOSHIMITSU Tetsuo of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and Digital Spice Co., Ltd. reported a significant milestone in space robotics: the successful operation of an FPGA-implemented RISC-V control system on the lunar surface.

The RISC-V system served as part of the core control architecture for LEV-1, a compact lunar robot that operated on the Moon in January 2024 as part of Japan’s SLIM mission.

By implementing RISC-V on an FPGA, the team enabled LEV-1 to perform autonomous operations on the lunar surface, contributing to Japan’s first robotic mobility demonstration on the Moon.

This achievement is believed to be the first reported operation of a RISC-V-based system in deep space, including on the lunar surface.



It represents an important step for the global RISC-V community and demonstrates the potential of open-standard processor architectures for future space systems.

RISC-V is an open-standard Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that defines how processors execute instructions. Because it is openly available, companies and researchers can design custom processors with a high degree of flexibility. RISC-V has gained increasing attention worldwide as a next-generation computing platform in fields such as AI, robotics, automotive systems, smart devices, and space exploration.
 

https://riscv.org/

 

LEV-1 is one of two compact lunar robots, together with LEV-2, deployed by Japan’s SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) mission, which landed on the Moon in January 2024. LEV-1 demonstrated key technologies for future lunar exploration, including autonomous mobility, cooperative operation with the ultra-compact transformable robot LEV-2, and direct communication with Earth independent of the main lander.

The successful integration and operation of RISC-V in LEV-1’s control system highlights the mission’s pioneering role at the intersection of space robotics and open-standard computing architectures. It also suggests new possibilities for the use of customizable processor architectures in future space missions, where compactness, flexibility, reliability, and autonomy are increasingly important.