Seamless Routing and Cooperative Localization of Multiple Mobile Robots for Search and Rescue Application

For multiple mobile robots sharing common data communication networks, ne twork connectivity and localization are two crucial issues for successfully performing a specified cooperative task. In particular, for a practical mobile robot team such as carrying out a search and rescue mission in a disaster area, the network connectiv ity and localization have to be guaranteed even in an environment where the network infrastructure is destroyed or a global positioning system (GPS) is un available. This paper proposes the new Collective Intelligen ce Network Management Architecture (CINeMA ) of multiple mobile robots supporting seamless network connectivity as well as cooperative localization. The proposed architecture includes a resource manager that makes the robots move around and not disconnect from the network link by considering the strength of the network signal and link quality. The location manager in the architecture supports localiz ing robots seamlessly by finding the relative locations of the robots while moving from a global outdoor environment to a local indoor position. The proposed schemes assuring network connectivity and localization were validated through numerical simulations and applied to a search and rescue robot team.