Proposition of a full deterministic medium access method for wireless network in a robotic application

TL;DR

This paper introduces a deterministic medium access control protocol for wireless robotic networks, improving QoS by eliminating collisions through efficient polling and deterministic message scheduling based on ZigBee standards.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel collision-free MAC protocol tailored for wireless robotic applications, enhancing QoS with deterministic access methods based on ZigBee.

Findings

Collision-free medium access achieved

Improved Quality of Service demonstrated

Deterministic message scheduling implemented

Abstract

Today, many network applications require shorter react time. Robotic field is an excellent example of these needs: robot react time has a direct effect on its task's complexity. Here, we propose a full deterministic medium access method for a wireless robotic application. This contribution is based on some low-power wireless personal area networks, like ZigBee standard. Indeed, ZigBee has identified limits with Quality of Service due to non-determinist medium access and probable collisions during medium reservation requests. In this paper, two major improvements are proposed: an efficient polling of the star nodes and a temporal deterministic distribution of peer-to-peer messages. This new MAC protocol with no collision offers some QoS faculties.