Design and Implementation of an Ad-Hoc Routing Protocol for Mobile Robots

Mobile robots need to be able to communicate among themselves, as well as with hosts participating in the task that they are all involved in. Wired networks are obviously not suitable for mobile robots. Current wireless networks based on a fixed infrastructure (GSM, WiFi, etc.) to route packets may not be suitable because this infrastructure does not cover every place and the requirements of its resources. The best choice for mobile robots are Ad-Hoc networks, which are wireless and do not need a fixed infrastructure. This article describes PERA, a complete communications library including link, net, and transport layers for mobile robots with reduced communications capacity. The network layer is based on a well-known ad-hoc routing protocol adapted to limited devices. This protocol has been implemented and tested on EyeBot mobile robots. Robots using PERA can send messages to other robots or hosts that are not directly reachable through their radio antenna range, by routing messages through intermediate mobile robots also running PERA. The design, implementation, testing and lessons learned in the development of PERA are presented in this article.

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