Stream aggregation in heterogeneous range and rate mobile robot networks

Multi-robot real-time exploration calls for joint consideration of mobility and communication: It requires video and audio streams of a newly explored area be transmitted to the base station in a timely fashion as robots explore the area. We address a central problem: How to place a minimum number of relay nodes, within connectivity and bandwidth constraints, to support the real-time stream aggregation from frontier nodes as they proceed? Particularly, we tackle this problem considering two critical and real-world conditions: (1) the heterogeneous transmission ranges and link capacities; (2) the impact of interference. The conditions increase the model complexity but significantly influence the actual available bandwidth and the required node size in placement. We found considering heterogeneous range and rate is beneficial. Our scheme markedly outperforms the uniform link and range relay placement by reduced relay number and enhanced exploration efficiency.