Interference Aware Path Planning for Mobile Robots in mmWave Multi Cell Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel path planning method for industrial mobile robots in mmWave networks that minimizes interference, significantly improving network throughput without increasing travel time.

Contribution

It proposes a mixed integer linear programming approach that jointly optimizes robot trajectories and interference levels in mmWave multi-cell networks.

Findings

Up to 31% increase in network throughput.

Effective interference mitigation without travel time penalty.

Validation through extensive numerical simulations.

Abstract

The emerging beyond 5G and envisioned 6G wireless networks are considered as key enablers in supporting a diversified set of applications for industrial mobile robots (MRs). The scenario under investigation in this paper relates to mobile robots that autonomously roam in an industrial floor and perform a variety of tasks at different locations whilst utilizing high directivity beamformers in mmWave small cells. In such scenarios, the potential close proximity of mobile robots connected to different base stations, may cause excessive levels of interference having as a net result a decrease in the overall achievable data rate in the network. To resolve this issue, a novel mixed integer linear programming formulation is proposed where the trajectory of the mobile robots is considered jointly with the interference level at different beam sectors. Therefore, creating a low interference path for each mobile robot in the industrial floor. A wide set of numerical investigations reveal that the proposed path planning optimization approach for the mmWave connected mobile robots can improve the overall achievable throughput by up to 31% compared to an interference oblivious scheme, without penalizing the overall travelling time.