Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots

This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan

QoS performance analysis of bit rate video streaming in next generation networks using TCP, UDP and a TCP+UDP hybrid

The growth in users streaming videos on the Internet has led to increased demand for improved video quality and reception. In next generation networks (NGNs), such as 3G and 4G LTE, quality of service (QoS) implementation is one of the ways in which good video quality and good video reception can be achieved. QoS mainly involves following an industry-wide set of standard metrics and mechanisms to achieve high-quality network performance in respect of video streaming. Adopting routing and communication protocols is one way QoS is implemented in NGNs. This article describes QoS of bit rate video streaming, and QoS performance analysis of video streaming, in relation to the main network transport protocols, namely transmission control protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP). A simulation test bed was set up using OPNET modeller 14.5. In this setup, a network topology was created and duplicated three times, in order to configure two simulation scenarios (each using the distinct protocols), and a third simulation scenario using both protocols in hybrid form. The findings in the simulations indicated that, when a network is configured with both TCP and UDP protocols in video streaming, there is a positive change in the degree of performance in terms of the QoS of videostreaming applications, unlike when the protocols are used independently.CA2016www.wits.ac.za/linkcentre/aji