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

A Conceptual Model for Network Decision Support Systems

We introduce the concept of a network DSS (NWDSS) consisting of fluid, heterogeneous nodes of human and machine agents, connected by wireless technology, which may enter and leave the network at unpredictable times, yet must also cooperate in decision-making activities. We describe distinguishing properties of the NWDSS and propose a 3-tier conceptual model comprised of digital infrastructure, transactive memory systems and emergent collaborative decision-making. We suggest a decision loop of Sense-Analyze-Adapt-Memory leveraging TMS as a starting point for addressing the agile collaborative requirements of emergent decision-making. Several examples of innovative NWDSS services are presented from Naval Postgraduate School field experiments

Tracking User-movement in Opportunistic Networks to Support Distributed Query-response During Disaster Management

AbstractEffective communication amongst diverse rescue and relief workers is a primary requirement in any disaster management. Since pre-existing communication infrastructure may not be available, the Opportunistic Network framework provides a potential platform for information communication, where individual smart-phones of rescue and relief workers (the nodes) spread across an environment form a disjoint, peer-to-peer network. Here, a source node communicates with a destination node following hop-by-hop, store-wait-forward cycle, since an end-to-end route connecting them never exists. Also, due to mobility and disconnectedness, nodes have scarce or no knowledge about the network topology. However, in the context of disaster management, in order to evaluate the situation, rescue and relief workers often need to generate different field-related queries and the response to those queries must come from other workers in the field. Since source node (generating the query) is not aware of the location of destination node (answering the query) and all nodes are mobile, it is difficult to implement a query-response mechanism. This paper proposes and evaluates a distributed query-response mechanism that enables any node to track approximate location of other rescue and relief workers, which is turn helps to handle query-response operations