Route Swarm: Wireless Network Optimization through Mobility

TL;DR

Route Swarm introduces a hybrid robotic network architecture that dynamically reconfigures mobile robots to optimize wireless routing and sensing, effectively decoupling information flow control from physical robot movement.

Contribution

The paper presents INSPIRE, a novel hybrid control architecture with separate information and physical control planes for optimizing wireless network routing with mobile robots.

Findings

Effective dynamic reconfiguration of robots for high-quality wireless routes

Decoupling of routing control and physical movement improves network performance

Simulation results demonstrate the approach's viability under realistic conditions

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel hybrid architecture for coordinating networked robots in sensing and information routing applications. The proposed INformation and Sensing driven PhysIcally REconfigurable robotic network (INSPIRE), consists of a Physical Control Plane (PCP) which commands agent position, and an Information Control Plane (ICP) which regulates information flow towards communication/sensing objectives. We describe an instantiation where a mobile robotic network is dynamically reconfigured to ensure high quality routes between static wireless nodes, which act as source/destination pairs for information flow. The ICP commands the robots towards evenly distributed inter-flow allocations, with intra-flow configurations that maximize route quality. The PCP then guides the robots via potential-based control to reconfigure according to ICP commands. This formulation, deemed Route Swarm, decouples information flow and physical control, generating a feedback between routing and sensing needs and robotic configuration. We demonstrate our propositions through simulation under a realistic wireless network regime.