Publication

ACHORD: Communication-aware multi-robot coordination with intermittent connectivity

Journal Article (2022)

Journal

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Pages

10184-10191

Volume

7

Number

4

Doc link

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2022.3193240

File

Download the digital copy of the doc pdf document

Authors

  • Saboia Da Silva, Maira

  • Clark, Lillian

  • Thangavelu, Vivek

  • Edlund, Jeffrey

  • Otsu, Kyohei

  • Correa, Gustavo J.

  • Varadharajan, Vivek Shankar

  • Santamaria Navarro, Angel

  • Touma, Thomas

  • Bouman, Amanda

  • Melikyan, Hovhannes

  • Pailevanian, Torkom

  • Kim, Sung-Kyun

  • Archanian, Avak

  • Vaquero, Tiago Stegun

  • Beltrame, Giovanni

  • Napp, Nils

  • Pessin, Gustavo

  • Agha-mohammadi, Ali-akbar

Projects associated

Abstract

Communication is an important capability for multi-robot exploration because (1) inter-robot communication (comms) improves coverage efficiency and (2) robot-to-base comms improves situational awareness. Exploring comms-restricted (e.g., subterranean) environments requires a multi-robot system to tolerate and anticipate intermittent connectivity, and to carefully consider comms requirements, otherwise mission-critical data may be lost. In this paper, we describe and analyze ACHORD (Autonomous & Collaborative High-Bandwidth Operations with Radio Droppables), a multi-layer networking solution which tightly co-designs the network architecture and high-level decision-making for improved comms. ACHORD provides bandwidth prioritization and timely and reliable data transfer despite intermittent connectivity. Furthermore, it exposes low-layer networking metrics to the application layer to enable robots to autonomously monitor, map, and extend the network via droppable radios, as well as restore connectivity to improve collaborative exploration. We evaluate our solution with respect to the comms performance in several challenging underground environments including the DARPA SubT Finals competition environment. Our findings support the use of data stratification and flow control to improve bandwidth-usage.

Categories

intelligent robots, mobile robots, multi-robot systems.

Scientific reference

M. Saboia Da Silva, L. Clark, V. Thangavelu, J. Edlund, K. Otsu, G.J. Correa, V.S. Varadharajan, A. Santamaria-Navarro, T. Touma, A. Bouman, H. Melikyan, T. Pailevanian, S. Kim, A. Archanian, T.S. Vaquero, G. Beltrame, N. Napp, G. Pessin and A. Agha-mohammadi. ACHORD: Communication-aware multi-robot coordination with intermittent connectivity. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(4): 10184-10191, 2022.