A Study on Tough Wireless Communication for Tough Robotics

-Latency-guaranteed multi-hop control communication network-

Abstract

Robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, are the hot research topics aiming at application to disaster response, infrastructure inspection, transportation, etc. 2.4GHz band wireless LAN is used for most of the control link of those robots because of cost and device availability. However, the wireless LAN protocol is not suitable for robot remote control because of fluctuation of transmission delay time and interference problem. Therefore, in this research, we have developed a multi-hop wireless network specialized for remote control link of robots and drones out of visual line-of-sight for future robot society. This paper presents the design and performance of prototype system obtained in field test.