In automated warehouses, for instance, robots are responsible for storing and fetching goods, among other missions. In these environments, especially when large distances have to be covered, robots may be used to carry physically, not only goods but messages and useful data; they act similarly to pigeons at the times where electronic circuits where not used for communications ... The scenario we want to address is constituted by two partitions of a given Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) separated by hundreds of meters which should be interconnected by the use of a couple of robots.
Each of the robots only goes halfway of the track between the two WSN nets. Arriving there, it waits for the other robot so that information can be transferred from one to the other. After finishing this transfer each of the robots will start move towards the WSN partition it is serving.
Partitioned Sensor Network Nodes: 2 motes (moteist5++)
Robots: 2x 3PI+mbed platform
The project will be developed in three stages:
- Setting the WSN using ISTmotes or micaZ's
- Splitting the WSN in two so that one part can no longer communicate with the other
- Setup the 3PI+mbed robot to interact with the WSN
We expect to have:
- Two threads in the transmission node (one for the serial communication and the other for the TRX)
- One thread in the robot (handle bothe movement and TRX/TRX)
- One thread in the reception node.
In order to guarantee concurrency the threads interact to each other through messages described in the following Sequence Diagram Sequence Diagram in UML
Expected Development Phases
Please check the Proof Of Concept video