Abstract :
Summary form only given, as follows. Autonomous mobile networks are distributed ad-hoc networks of nodes that can sense, actuate, compute and communicate with each other using point-to-point multi-hop communication. The nodes in such networks include static sensors, mobile sensors, robots, and humans. Such systems combine the most advanced concepts in perception, communication and control to create computational systems capable of large-scale interaction with the environment, extending the individual capabilities of each network component to encompass a much wider area and range of data. We discuss communication, control and information processing in networked robots. Due to the absence of any networking infrastructure, the nodes must cooperate to accomplish communication, global control and distributed information aggregation. We present distributed algorithms for routing messages that use mobility to guarantee message delivery, distributed algorithms for aggregating maps and using the maps to guide navigation, and some recent results on information diffusion.
Keywords :
ad hoc networks; mobile computing; mobile radio; mobile robots; telecommunication network routing; wireless sensor networks; aggregating maps; autonomous mobile networks; computational systems; distributed ad-hoc networks; distributed algorithms; distributed information aggregation; humans; information diffusion; information processing; message routing; mobile sensors; networked robots; networking infrastructure; point-to-point multi-hop communication; static sensors; Ad hoc networks; Communication system control; Computer networks; Distributed algorithms; Distributed computing; Mobile communication; Mobile computing; Mobile robots; Robot sensing systems; Spread spectrum communication;