Real-time emulation of networked robot systems

ABSTRACT

In this paper we present a methodology for the evaluation of networked systems communicating using WLAN technology. We show a case study of goal-oriented cooperating robots, for which our approach is particularly useful. Developing robots is expensive; hence emulation can be employed in the first part of the development cycle to study robot software implementations in realistic conditions at a reduced cost. Our methodology is based on the emulation of both the robots and the WLAN communication technology. The robots we consider cooperate in order to efficiently reach a destination while avoiding collisions with obstacles and other robots. The WLAN communication emulation engine QOMET is deployed in the emulated robots to recreate network conditions similar to those occurring in a real WLAN environment. The experiments are run on a large-scale network experiment environment, StarBED, using the support software RUNE. Currently, over one hundred emulated robots can be run simultaneously during an experiment on our testbed.

REFERENCES

• 1: Webots. Fast Prototyping and Simulation of Mobile Robots. http://www.cyberbotics.com
• 2: Stanford Aerospace Robotics Laboratory. http://arl.stanford.edu
• 3: Chaimowicz, L., et al. 2005. Deploying Air-Ground Multi-Robot Teams in Urban Environments. In Proc. of the 2005 International Workshop on Multi-Robot Systems (Washington DC, U.S.A., March 2005). 223--234.
• 4: University of Utah, School of Computing. Emulab -- Network Emulation Testbed. http://www.emulab.net
• 5: Kropff, M., Krop, T., Hollick, M., Mogre, P. S., Steinmetz, R. 2006. A Survey of Real-World and Emulation Testbeds for Mobile Ad hoc Networks. In Proc. of TridentCom 2006 (Barcelona, Spain, March 2006).
• 6: Kojo, M., Gurtov, A., Manner, J., Sarolahti, P., Alanko, T., Raatikainen, K. 2001. Seawind: A Wireless Network Emulator. In Proc. of 11th Conference on Measuring, Modelling and Evaluation of Computer and Communication Systems (MMB) (Aachen, Germany, September 2001).
• 7: Zheng, P., Ni, L. M. 2003. EMPOWER: A Network Emulator for Wireline and Wireless Networks. In Proc. of IEEE Infocom 2003 (San Francisco, U.S.A., April 2003)
• 8: Perennou, T., Conchon, E., Dairaine, L., Diazet, M. 2004. Two-Stage Wireless Network Emulation. In Proc. of WCC2004 (Toulouse, France, August 2004).
• 9: Bateman, M., Allison, C., Ruddle, A. 2003. A Scenario Driven Emulator for Wireless, Fixed and Ad Hoc networks. In Proc. of PGNet2003 (Liverpool, U.K., June 2003). 273--278.
• 10: Priya Mahadevan , Adolfo Rodriguez , David Becker , Amin Vahdat, MobiNet: a scalable emulation infrastructure for ad hoc and wireless networks, Papers presented at the 2005 workshop on Wireless traffic measurements and modeling, p.7-12, June 05-05, 2005, Seattle, Washington
• 11: Philip Levis , Nelson Lee , Matt Welsh , David Culler, TOSSIM: accurate and scalable simulation of entire TinyOS applications, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Embedded networked sensor systems, November 05-07, 2003, Los Angeles, California, USA [doi>10.1145/958491.958506]
• 12: TinyOS embedded networked sensor operating system, http://www.tinyos.net
• 13: Polley, J., Blazakis, D., McGee, J., Rusk, D., Baras, J. S. 2004. ATEMU: A Fine-grained Sensor Network Simulator. In Proc. of the First IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON 2004).
• 14: Toshiyuki Miyachi , Ken-ichi Chinen , Yoichi Shinoda, StarBED and SpringOS: large-scale general purpose network testbed and supporting software, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Performance evaluation methodolgies and tools, October 11-13, 2006, Pisa, Italy [doi>10.1145/1190095.1190133]
• 15: Hsu, D., Latombe, J.-C., Motwani R. 1997 Path Planning in Expansive Configuration Spaces. International Journal of Computer Geometry and Applications, Vol. 9, No. 4/5 (1997). 495--512.
• 16: ANSI/IEEE Standard 802.11. 2003. 1999 Edition, Reaffirmed 2003.
• 17: ANSI/IEEE Standard 802.11a. 1999.
• 18: ANSI/IEEE Standard 802.11b. 1999.
• 19: ANSI/IEEE Standard 802.11g. 2003.
• 20: Razvan Beuran , Lan Tien Nguyen , Khin Thida Latt , Junya Nakata , Yoichi Shinoda, QOMET: A Versatile WLAN Emulator, Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Advanced Networking and Applications, p.348-353, May 21-23, 2007 [doi>10.1109/AINA.2007.116]
• 21: Theodore Rappaport, Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2001
• 22: Intersil. 2002. HFA3861B: Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Baseband Processor. Intersil data sheet. (February 2002)
• 23: Intersil. 2000. Measurement of WLAN Receiver Sensitivity. Intersil technical brief. (February 2000)
• 24: Kamerman, A., Monteban, L. 1997. WaveLAN-II: A high-performance wireless LAN for the unlicensed band. Bell Lab Technical Journal (1997). 118--133.
• 25: Gupta, P., Kumar, P. R. 1999. Capacity of wireless networks. Technical report, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. (1999)
• 26: Nakata, J., Miyachi, T., Beuran, R., Chinen, K., Uda, S., Masui, K., Tan, Y., Shinoda, Y. 2007. StarBED2: Large-scale, Realistic and Real-time Testbed for Ubiquitous Networks. TridentCom 2007 (Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., May 21--23, 2007).
• 27: Beuran, R., Nakata, J., Okada, T., Miyachi, T., Chinen, K., Tan, Y., Shinoda, Y. 2007. Performance Assessment of Ubiquitous Networked Systems. 5th International Conference on Smart Homes and Health Telematics (ICOST2007) (Nara, Japan, June 21--23, 2007, pp. 19--26).
• 28: Rizzo, L. Dummynet FreeBSD network emulator. http://info.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/ip_dummynet.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.3 Applications

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Measurement, Performance, Verification

Keywords:
WLAN emulation, large-scale testbed, networked robots, real-time system emulation