18,178 research outputs found
Ten years of cooperation between mobile robots and sensor networks
This paper presents an overview of the work carried out by
the Group of Robotics, Vision and Control (GRVC) at the
University of Seville on the cooperation between mobile
robots and sensor networks. The GRVC, led by Professor
Anibal Ollero, has been working over the last ten years on
techniques where robots and sensor networks exploit
synergies and collaborate tightly, developing numerous
research projects on the topic. In this paper, based on our
research, we introduce what we consider some relevant
challenges when combining sensor networks with mobile
robots. Then, we describe our developed techniques and
main results for these challenges. In particular, the paper
focuses on autonomous self-deployment of sensor networks;
cooperative localization and tracking; self-localization
and mapping; and large-scale scenarios. Extensive
experimental results and lessons learnt are also discussed
in the paper
Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks
In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge,
and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor
Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system
that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining
certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control,
learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and
WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new
opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields
which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be
the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path
between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the
advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of
articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a
range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant
to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core
problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity,
localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the
existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from
robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in
the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature,
and identify topics that require more research attention in the future
A Novel MAC Protocol for Low Datarate Cooperative Mobile Robot Teams
Cooperative mobile robot applications enable robots to perform tasks that are more complex than those that each single robot can perform alone. In this application context, communication networks play a very important role, as they have to cope with strict requirements (e.g., in terms of mobility, reliability, and bounded latencies). Recent cooperative robot applications foresee the support of low datarate communication technologies, that provide, among other benefits, lower energy consumption and easy integration with Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art solutions either entail high costs and complexity or are not suitable for low data rate communications. Consequently, novel solutions for cooperating robots are required. For this reason, this paper presents RoboMAC, a new MAC protocol for mobile cooperating robots that enables the integration of robots with WSNs, supports mobility and real-time communications, and provides high scalability. The paper also presents a proof-of-concept implementation that proves the feasibility of the RoboMAC protocol on COTS devices
Bounded Distributed Flocking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots
There have been numerous studies on the problem of flocking control for
multiagent systems whose simplified models are presented in terms of point-mass
elements. Meanwhile, full dynamic models pose some challenging problems in
addressing the flocking control problem of mobile robots due to their
nonholonomic dynamic properties. Taking practical constraints into
consideration, we propose a novel approach to distributed flocking control of
nonholonomic mobile robots by bounded feedback. The flocking control objectives
consist of velocity consensus, collision avoidance, and cohesion maintenance
among mobile robots. A flocking control protocol which is based on the
information of neighbor mobile robots is constructed. The theoretical analysis
is conducted with the help of a Lyapunov-like function and graph theory.
Simulation results are shown to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed
distributed flocking control scheme
Stationary and Mobile Target Detection using Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks
In this work, we study the target detection and tracking problem in mobile
sensor networks, where the performance metrics of interest are probability of
detection and tracking coverage, when the target can be stationary or mobile
and its duration is finite. We propose a physical coverage-based mobility
model, where the mobile sensor nodes move such that the overlap between the
covered areas by different mobile nodes is small. It is shown that for
stationary target scenario the proposed mobility model can achieve a desired
detection probability with a significantly lower number of mobile nodes
especially when the detection requirements are highly stringent. Similarly,
when the target is mobile the coverage-based mobility model produces a
consistently higher detection probability compared to other models under
investigation.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figures, appeared in INFOCOM 201
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