Reinforcing wireless links using controllable mobility of robotic relays

In ad hoc networks, wireless links are subject to a low quality due to time-varying channel properties, node mobility, and obstacles. Such low quality wireless links lead to the degraded performance of the end-to-end data transfer service, which also result in less applicability of ad hoc networks to practical deployment. In order to address the problem of low quality wireless links and provide a required quality for end-to-end data transfer services, we propose a novel routing and relaying architecture that exploits controllable mobility of robotic relays, namely RoCoMAR (Robots' Controllable Mobility Aided Routing), which repeatedly reinforces wireless links with the main objective of maximizing the network throughput. RoCoMAR first identifies the lowest quality link and replaces it with high quality links that are created by re-locating a robotic relay in an optimal position. The simulation results show that RoCoMAR outperforms existing ad hoc routing protocols in terms of network throughput and end-to-end delay.