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localization;
link
I. I NTRODUCTION
Exploration of unknown, hostile or difficult (even impossible) to access places is a challenging task for robotics.
Applications include exploration over disaster areas, tactical military missions, and planetary exploration. In many
cases, the use of robots on exploration applications is
limited to the operation of one or various independent
units, however, since some years ago, the concept of
using colonies of multiple collaborating robots to perform
exploration tasks has been developed [1].
Whether to remotely control an exploring robot or to
communicate findings or any kind of data, many robotic
applications require to maintain a wireless communication
link between a robotic unit and a gateway node. Depending
on the application, this gateway can be of different nature
(e.g., a portable device, a base station, etc.), enabling
remote monitoring/control, data storage, and other functionalities. Noticeably, in these cases the exploring robot
coverage is constrained by the signal range so, when the
task involves larger regions, routing units installation is
required.
An alternative to the installation of routing units is
the use of a network of mobile routing robots that autonomously seek the best position to forward data packets
between explorer nodes and the gateway, maintaining a
certain link quality [2].
The task of maintaining links in a multi-robot scenario
is a complex task, specially when the use of global
Cristian Duran-Faundez
Departamento de Ingeniera Electrica y Electronica
Universidad del Bo-Bo
Concepcion, Chile
Email: crduran@ubiobio.cl
not possible in communication link maintenance applications with mobile router robots, moreover, all robots
should be considered to move over time so this kind of
algorithms are not well suited because there are no fixed
reference points (except, may be, the gateway node).
The literature reports a special kind of problem involving colonies of multiple robots allowing detection and
following of target nodes to provide network connectivity.
Such issue is known as tethering. In [7], a doublelayer chain tethering algorithm is proposed. Authors argue
that single-layer chain tethering has drawbacks because
communication links can be lost if intermediate nodes
have problems. Given a quantity of deployed nodes, the
developed algorithm makes nodes to maintain a particular
topological configuration even in presence of obstacles.
A RSSI-based metric is proposed as a quality link metric.
The algorithm is simulated in Matlab, showing how nodes
initially deployed in random positions always tend to
maintain the reference double-layer chain configuration.
Real world issues of localization and tethering are addressed in [3]. Authors design and implement a tethering
algorithm allowing a LANdroid robot to follow another
LANdroid, using a RSS-based distance model. Finally,
in [2], a RSSI-based multi-robot tethering algorithm is
proposed. This algorithm is based on cluster geometries,
which are local topological configurations that robots can
recognize and use to orient themselves and diminish uncertainty. This work identify three type of nodes: Gateways,
Targets and LANdroids. Our work is similar in the sense
that our proposed applications involves similar types of
nodes, and we use RSSI as a link quality indicator.
However, the problem we address introduce the problem
of using different number of router nodes over time.
III. A
The reference multi-robot exploring application we propose includes the following kind of nodes:
1) A base station, which has two general functionalities: First, it is the networks gateway node, so
it is the point where application data come to and
go from the exploring robot colony. Second, it is
a place where robots are stored, maintained, and/or
energetically recharged. For the stated problem, this
is considered to be a non-constrained node (i.e. a
place with unlimited resources: energy, etc.).
2) A set of explorer robots, which are sent to make
some exploration mission in an unknown environment. Explorer robots start moving away from the
base station, and they must periodically (or eventually) exchange application data from it. For the
stated problem, these are target nodes that wander on
the environment in an unpredictable (autonomous),
although not random, way [2].
3) A set of router robots, which are sent to get positions allowing them to forward data packets between
the explorer robots and the base station, maintaining
certain quality links. For the stated problem, these
mobile nodes are driven by a control algorithm that
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Figure 1: Example of the problem of sending redundant routing robots to the base station. In (a), two independent
router chains maintain communication links to explorer robots E1 and E2. In (b), E2 approaches E1. In (c), E2 is in
the proximities of router R1, so it can share the same communication chain, and routers R3 and R4 can go back to the
base station. In (a), In (d), E2 moves away from R1. In (e), E2 moves further away, so nodes R3 and R4 are sent to
maintain the communication link. In (f), E2 losses connectivity because router nodes are still far from it.
Di fd
|RSSIVS RSSIVI |
RSSIVS RSSIVI
Di fa
(1)
(2)
maxAA Q(s , A )]
s
9: return Ac
V. S IMULATION
RESULTS
3.5
Difa T1
3
GG1 T1
2.5
Dif T
RSSI (db)
GG1 T3
1.5
Difa T2
80
TG
GW
GG1 T2
2
Meters (M)
1
0.5
60
40
20
0
0.5
0.5
0
0
0.5
1.5
2
Meters (M)
2.5
(a) Trajectories.
3.5
10
20
Meters (M)
30
40
(b) Di fa .
RSSI Inf
RSSI Sup
0.8
0.6
20
RSSI (db)
Meters (M)
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
40
0.5
1
GG1
1.5
GG2
0
0.5
GG1
GG2
1.5
GG3
GG3
2
2.5
60
0.6
1
0.5
Meters (M)
GG
GW
TG
Meters (M)
0
1
1.5
1
0.5
GW
TG
0
4
Meters (M)
2.5
GW
TG
0
4
Meters (M)
0.8
3
4
Meters (M)
(a) Trajectories.
100
200
300
Iteration (k)
400
500
(b) Di fa .
(b) k = 100
1.5
1.5
0.5
0.5
0
0.5
GG
GG2
1.5
2.5
A. Simulation description
B. Evaluation method
The proposed heuristic ensures convergence in an area
near PO, implying an error between the ideal RSSI and average RSSI of the area where GG converges. As explained
above, paths performed by GG units are not unique while
finding PO. Thus, as individual simulations could not be
representative of general behavior, we provide statistical
results in terms of mean and standard deviation for the
indicators of interest. Mean provides expected behavior
and standard deviation allows intervals of validity of the
expected value. RSSI values may present discontinuities
and far values of the standard deviation. These abrupt
values that may occur in some simulations are identified
when GG units are activated. This is because of the initial
values of the RSSI filters and/or because of the RSSI
4
Meters (M)
GG1
GG2
GG
GW
TG
GW
TG
0
0
0.5
1.5
GG3
2.5
(c) k = 200
4
Meters (M)
1.5
0.5
0.5
0
0.5
GG1
GG2
1.5
4
Meters (M)
GG1
GG
GW
TG
0
0
0.5
1.5
GG3
2
2.5
(d) k = 300
1.5
Meters (M)
Meters (M)
(a) k = 5
Meters (M)
80
Meters (M)
GG3
GW
TG
2.5
(e) k = 400
4
Meters (M)
(f) k = 500
60
40
RSSI (db)
RSSI (db)
Difa GG1
40
20
30
20
10
DE Dif GG
a
200
400
Iteracion (k)
600
DE Dif GG
a
40
60
RSSI (db)
RSSI (db)
40
20
30
20
10
200
400
Iteracion (k)
600
200
400
Iteracion (k)
600
80
50
Difa GG3
DE Difa GG3
40
60
RSSI (db)
RSSI (db)
600
50
Dif GG
40
20
0
200
400
Iteracion (k)
80
30
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
20
10
200
400
Iteracion (k)
600
200
400
Iteracion (k)
600
60
30
10
5
100
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600
RSSI (db)
40
30
DE Error RSSI VI
DE Error RSSI VS
25
50
100
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600
100
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600
60
30
Error RSSI VI
Error RSSI VS
50
30
20
10
10
100
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600
[6] Q. Mao and B. Fidan, Localization Algorithms and Strategies for Wireless Sensor Networks. Information Science
Reference, 2009.
[7] X. Chen and J. Tan, An adaptive mobile robots tethering
algorithm in constrained environments, in Intelligent Robots
and Systems, 2009. IROS 2009. IEEE/RSJ International
Conference on, Oct 2009, pp. 13771382.
15
20
DE Error RSSI VI
DE Error RSSI VS
25
RSSI (db)
40
[5] A. Bensky, Wireless positioning technologies and applications, 2008, Ed. Artech House.
15
10
R EFERENCES
20
10
20
100
30
Error RSSI VI
Error RSSI VS
60
70
RSSI (db)
15
10
RSSI (db)
20
20
DE Error RSSI VI
DE Error RSSI VS
25
RSSI (db)
RSSI (db)
40
[1] I. Rekleitis, G. Dudek, and E. Milios, Multi-robot collaboration for robust exploration, in Robotics and Automation,
2000. Proceedings. ICRA 00. IEEE International Conference on, vol. 4, 2000, pp. 31643169 vol.4.
30
Error RSSI VI
Error RSSI VS
50
Different sub-problems are discussed. After, a RSSIbased algorithm for maintaining a single communication
chain between one explorer robot and the base station is
proposed. This algorithm is based in a simple heuristic
consisting on the evaluation of three goals: decreasing
absolute RSSI difference between obtained data from
previous and next neighboring nodes in the communication chain, the increase of the farthest neighbor RSSI,
and the decrease of the nearest neighbor RSSI. This
heuristic is used to select the next action to perform by
a robotic router, combining simple decisions with a Qlearning-based decision process. Simulation results over
1000 repetitions of a simulation scheme shows good
performance of the algorithm to make converge router
robots to near-optimal positions, considering the simulated
models restrictions.
Future works will focus on improving the guidance
algorithm, and dealing with all different sub-problems
described in Section III.
100
200
300
400
Iteration (k)
500
600