Robotic Parasitic Array Control for Increased RSS in Non-Line-of-Sight

Safety, security, and rescue missions typically occur in environments where unreliable wireless communication impedes cooperative human and robot missions. A low-VHF band antenna array formed through the coordination of ground robots has the potential to transmit and receive signals more reliably at longer ranges in these environments. We advance this idea here by developing methods for controlling a robot forming a low-VHF antenna array to improve or maintain wireless communication with other agents in these complex environments. We propose and test methods for orienting this robotic antenna array to increase received signal strength (RSS) in a complex environment. In these tests, we show that creating and actuating this array improves RSS in line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight conditions.