Adaptive Embedded Roadmaps For Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a new approach to wireless sensor network assisted navigation while avoiding moving dangers. Our approach relies on an embedded roadmap in the sensor network that always contains safe paths. The roadmap is adaptive, i.e., it adapts its topology to changing dangers. Mobile robots in the environment use the roadmap to reach their destinations. We evaluated the performance of embedded roadmap both in simulations using realistic conditions and with real hardware. Our results show that the proposed navigation algorithm is better suited for sensor networks than traditional navigation field based algorithms. Our observations suggest that there are two drawbacks of traditional navigation field based algorithms, (i) increased power consumption, (ii) message congestion that can prevent important danger avoidance messages to be received by the robots. In contrast, our approach significantly reduces the number of messages on the network (up to 160 times in some scenarios) while increasing the navigation performance.