Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Robot Navigation in a Decentralized Landmark-Free Sensor Network

  • Unmanned System Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A wireless sensor network has the ability to autonomously perform event detection over large areas, but power and/or cost constraints limit the addition of equipment such as cameras onto sensor modules to verify events. Accordingly, verification must be performed by an independent mobile robotic vehicle which has sensing equipment for improved event detection. The main challenge, however, is that the robotic vehicle itself is typically located somewhere in the sensor field and has no prior knowledge of the geographic location of the event. In this paper, we specifically focus upon the scenario of navigating a robotic vehicle through a stationary wireless sensor network as a means to perform event verification. The underlying assumptions are that the robotic vehicle has distance traveled and heading measurements, but the only additional information provided by the stationary sensors is a communication boundary. More significantly, we emphasize that under this scenario, neither the robot nor the ground-fixed sensing nodes have location or any other geographical landmark information. The paper introduces two distinct and novel navigation algorithms that permit the robotic vehicle to travel from one fixed node to another along a communication path established in an ad-hoc fashion. These navigation algorithms have been tested on a newly developed UTrekr robotic vehicle within a hardware based ground-fixed sensor network and under assumption of perfect communication and network operations, we report a nearly 100% success rate even while using open-loop robot control.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Butler, Z., Rus, D.: Event-based motion control for mobile-sensor networks. IEEE Pervasive Computing 2(4), 34–42 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Oriolo, G., Vendittelli, M., Freda, L., Troso, G.: The srt method: randomized strategies for exploration. In: IEEE International Conference on Robots and Automation (2004)

  3. Akkaya, K., Younis, M.: A survey of routing protocols in wireless sensor networks. Ad Hoc Networks 3, 325–349 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Heinzelman, W., Chandrakasan, A., Balakrishnan, H.: Energy-efficient communication protocol for wireless sensor networks. In: Proceeding of the Hawaii International Conference System Sciences, Hawaii (2000)

  5. Gao, J., Guibas, L.J., Hershberger, J., Zhang, L., Zhu, A.: Discrete mobile centers. Discrete Comput. Geom. 30(1), 45–63 (2003)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Mercker, T.: Self-organization and navigation algorithms for deployable decentralized sensor networks. Master’s thesis, University of Texas at Austin (2008)

  7. Priyantha, N.B., Chakraborty, A., Balakrishnan, H.: The cricket location-support system. In: 6th ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (ACM MOBICOM), Boston, MA (2000)

  8. Sallai, J., Balogh, G., Maroti, M., Ledeczi, A.: Acoustic ranging in resource-constrained sensor networks. In: International Conference on Wireless Networks, Las Vegas, NV (2004)

  9. Terwilliger, M., Gupta, A., Bhuse, V., Kamal, Z.H., Salahuddin, M.A.: A localization system using wireless network sensors: a comparison of two techniques. In: Proc. of the First Workshop on Positioning, Navigation and Communication, Hannover, Germany (2004)

  10. Elnahrawy, E., Xiaoyan Li, Martin, R.P.: The limits of localization using signal strength: a comparative study. In: Sensor and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks, pp. 406–414, 4–7 October (2004)

  11. Nasipuri, A., Li, K.: A directionality based location discovery scheme for wireless sensor networks. In: Proceedings of the First ACM International Workshop on Wireless Sensor Networks and Applications (WSNA-02), pp. 105–111. New York, NY (2002)

  12. Ramadurai, V., Sichitiu, M.L.: Localization in wireless sensor networks: a probabilistic approach. In: 2003 International Conference on Wireless Networks (ICWN03), pp. 275–281. Las Vegas, NV (2003)

  13. Ferris, B., D. Hähnel, Fox, D.: Gaussian processes for signal strength-based location estimation. In: Proc. of Robotics Science and Systems (2006)

  14. Dantu, K., Rahimi, M.H., Shah, H., Babel, S., Dhariwal, A., Sukhatme, G.S.: Robomote: Enabling mobility in sensor networks. In: IEEE/ACM Fourth International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN-SPOTS), pp. 404–409 (2005)

  15. Bergbreiter, S., Pister, K.S.J.: Cotsbots: an off-the-shelf platform for distributed robotics. In: Proc. of the IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Las Vegas, NV (2003)

  16. Gerkey, B.P., Mailler, R., Morisset, B.: Commbots: distributed control of mobile communication relays. In: Proc. of the AAAI Workshop on Auction Mechanisms for Robot Coordination, pp. 51–57. Boston, MA (2006)

  17. Dantu, K., Sukhatme, G.S.: Detecting and tracking level sets of scalar fields using a robotic sensor network. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3665–3672 (2007)

  18. Verma, A., Sawant, H., Tan, J.: Selection and navigation of mobile sensor nodes using a sensor network. Third In: IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications, PerCom 2005, pp. 41–50 (2005)

  19. Alankus, G., Atay, N., Chenyang Lu, Bayazit, O.B.: Adaptive embedded roadmaps for sensor networks. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3645–3652 (2007)

  20. Li, Q., De Rosa, M., Rus, D.: Distributed algorithms for guiding navigation across a sensor network. In: MobiCom ’03: Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, pp. 313–325. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2003)

  21. Batalin, M., Sukhatme, G.: Coverage, exploration and deployment by a mobile robot and communication network. J. Telecommun. Syst. (Special Issue on Wireless Sensor Networks) 26:181–196

  22. Batalin, M., Sukhatme, G.: The analysis of an efficient algorithm for robot coverage and exploration based on sensor network deployment. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2005, pp. 3478–3485 (2005)

  23. Batalin, M.A., Sukhatme, G.S., Hattig, M.: Mobile robot navigation using a sensor network. In: Proceedings ICRA ’04., IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 1, pp. 636–641 (2004)

  24. O’Hara, K.J., Bigio, V.L., Dodson, E.R., Irani, A.J., Walker, D.B., Balch, T.R.: Physical path planning using the gnats. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2005, pp. 709–714 (2005)

  25. O’Hara, K.J., Bigio, V.L., Dodson, E.R., Irani, A.J., Walker, D.B., Balch, T.R.: Evaluation of a Large Scale Pervasive Embedded Network for Robot Path Planning (2006)

  26. Lee, W., Hur, Y., Eom, D-S.: Navigation of mobile node in wireless sensor networks without localization. In: IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Integration for Intelligent Systems, MFI 2008, pp. 1–7 (2008)

  27. Teimoori, H., Savkin, A.: Equiangular navigation and guidance of a wheeled mobile robot based on range-only measurements. Robot. Auton. Syst. 58, 203–215 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Ferranti, E., Trigoni, N.: Practical issues in deploying mobile agents to explore asensor-instrumented environment. Comput. J. (2010)

  29. Tilove, R.B.: Local obstacle avoidance for mobile robots based on the method of artificial potentials. In: Proceedings on IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 1, pp. 566–571 (1990)

  30. Kelly, A., Stentz, A., Amidi, O., Bode, M., Bradley, D., Diaz-Calderon, A., Happold, M., Herman, H., Mandelbaum, R., Pilarski, T., Rander, P., Thayer, S., Vallidis, N., Warner, R.: Toward reliable off road autonomous vehicles operating in challenging environments. Int. J. Rob. Res. 25(5–6), 449–483 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Hamner, B., Singh, S., Roth, S., Takahashi, T.: An efficient system for combined route traversal and collision avoidance. Auton. Robots 24(4), 365–385 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Crossbow.: Micaz: datasheet. http://www.xbow.com (2007)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Texas at Austin 1 University, Station C0600, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Travis Mercker, Maruthi Akella & Jorge Alvarez

Authors
  1. Travis Mercker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maruthi Akella
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jorge Alvarez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Travis Mercker.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mercker, T., Akella, M. & Alvarez, J. Robot Navigation in a Decentralized Landmark-Free Sensor Network. J Intell Robot Syst 60, 553–576 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-010-9431-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-010-9431-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation