Deployment control of mobile robots for wireless network relay based on received signal strength

Remote operation of robots for rescue purpose requires wireless network to transmit control data and video data, however the communication infrastructure cannot always be used in the case of disaster. Thus the self-organized network needs to be constructed which consequently requires multi-hop relayed ad-hoc network. Because the robot will be used inside the building where the direct wireless communication between the base station and the leader robot. This paper propose a control scheme which aims at the optimum deployment of multi-relay robots using virtual force estimated by the Bayesian filtering based on the state of communication from the received signal strength and location of each robots. Detail of the scheme and simulation results are shown. Experimental results which are conducted with real mobile robots are also shown.