Maintaining wireless connectivity constraints for swarms in the presence of obstacles

Abstract

The low power requirements of many small radio modems suggest that robust operation is best attained when the transmitter/receiver pair is: (1) separated by less than some maximum distance (range); and (2) not obstructed by large dense objects (line-of-sight). Therefore to maintain a wireless link between two robots, it is desirable to comply with these two spatial constraints. Given a swarm of point robots with specified initial and final configurations and a set of desired communication links consistent with the above criteria, we explore the problem of designing inputs to achieve the final configuration while preserving the desired links for the duration of the motion. Some interesting conclusions about the feasibility of the problem are offered. An algorithm is provided and its operation is demonstrated through both simulation and experimentation on Koala robots