Research Article
A Networked Robot System for Wireless Network Emulation
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.ROBOCOMM2007.2167, author={Tzi-cker Chiueh and Rupa Krishnan and Pradipta De and Jui-Hao Chiang}, title={A Networked Robot System for Wireless Network Emulation}, proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination}, proceedings_a={ROBOCOMM}, year={2010}, month={5}, keywords={}, doi={10.4108/ICST.ROBOCOMM2007.2167} }- Tzi-cker Chiueh
Rupa Krishnan
Pradipta De
Jui-Hao Chiang
Year: 2010
A Networked Robot System for Wireless Network Emulation
ROBOCOMM
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/ICST.ROBOCOMM2007.2167
Abstract
A major barrier to advancing modern wireless networking research is the lack of an effective wireless network simulation platform that simultaneously offers high fidelity, scalability, reproducibility and ease of use. MiNT [8], [7] is an innovative wireless network emulation platform that is specifically designed to satisfy all these desirable properties. To support reconfigurable network topology and wireless node mobility, MiNT is built on a networked robot system that carries wireless networking equipments and is designed to be completely tetherless, capable of supporting 24X7 operation, and low-cost. This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of this networked robot system. Each robot node in MiNT is an iRobot’s Roomba, which is modified to house an embedded PC equipped with multiple wireless networking interfaces and to re-charge the embedded PC through Roomba’s built-in self-charging mechanism. For robot navigation and movement, MiNT’s networked robot system supports a computer vision-based robot positioning mechanism and a collision avoidance-driven trajectory planning component. Finally, MiNT provides an interactive control interface and visualization interface to give users real-time visibility into and full control over the MiNT testbed.