Abstract
We describe general methods for evaluating the over-the-air performance in various radio propagation environments of wireless devices used for control and telemetry of urban search and rescue robots. These methods are based on identification and evaluation of performance metrics that can be used to assess impairments to the wireless link. The type and level of each impairment are derived from measurement data in a given environment, here a subterranean tunnel. We illustrate how parameters can be extracted from the measurement data to determine specific values for the performance metrics and discuss how these values can be used to develop standardized test methods for assessing, verifying, or predicting robot performance.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following: Chriss Grosvenor of the Electromagnetics Division of NIST and Dr. Robert Johnk of the Institute for Telecommunications Science (formerly of NIST) for assistance with the measured data; Dr. Bert Coursey, Director of the DHS Office of Standards and Elena Messina and Adam Jacoff of NIST’s Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory for funding and supporting this work; Dr. Alex Bordetsky of the Naval Postgraduate School for facilitating the measurements during recent interagency marine interdiction operation system tests; Bill Dunlop, Steve MacLaren, and Dave Benzel of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for logistical and technical support; Roger Epperson, Park Supervisor and Gary Righettini, Mine Manager of the East Bay Regional Park District and the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, for allowing us to conduct measurements; Frederick M. Remley for details on the NTSC video standard.
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Remley, K.A., Hough, G., Koepke, G., Camell, D. (2009). Measurements to Support Performance Evaluation of Wireless Communications in Tunnels for Urban Search and Rescue Robots. In: Madhavan, R., Tunstel, E., Messina, E. (eds) Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Intelligent Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0492-8_9
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