Abstract
Mobile robots with wireless capabilities can enable network connectivity over large areas by relaying wireless signals from a ground station. Our goal is, for such robotic networks, to enhance current teleoperated robots' ability to perform reconnaissance or assist human first responders on victims' search and rescue operations. On these missions, uninterrupted communications between teleoperated robots and their human operators are essential. In order to maximize the teleoperated robots' working area, the robotic network has to deploy itself, in an unknown and potentially hazardous environment, spreading as much as possible without losing network connectivity. Therefore becoming an area coverage problem. In this paper, we present a distributed algorithm that enables simple mobile robots with no advanced self-localization capabilities to create a robotic network and self deploy. The proposed method employs a behavior-based distributed algorithm mainly based on wireless received signal strength measurements and relative locations between neighboring robots - which are obtained from particle filters. Real wireless signal strength and odometry sensors' data were collected and used to validate our approach.
