Field Report on Experimental Comparison of a WiFi Mesh Network Against Commercial 5G in an Underground Disaster Environment

Mobile robots in disaster scenarios such as tunnels, mines, or collapsed structures face communication challenges for reliable video streaming to remote control centers. Commercial fifth-generation (5G) networks provide low latency and high bandwidth, especially in urban areas, but ad hoc WiFi networks with static and robotic nodes can provide a solution to attenuation in occluded areas. This paper offers a field experiment report from a search and rescue (SAR) exercise where we tested a WiFi mesh network against commercial 5G in tunnels 184 m long, 6 m wide, and 4 m high. Two operator streamed video to the Internet through a mesh that consisted of two static nodes and two mobile nodes on unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). Latency was measured for both operators for different video resolutions, as well as for a 5G customer-premises equipment (CPE) on-board a scout-UGV. The paper discusses experimental results and lessons learned.