Project
Selforganizing Robot System
- External Communication -
Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, LVDS
Shortcuts: Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, LVDS
To allow all components to work together as a system it is very useful for each component to be able to communicate with every other component. A single wireless communication medium can't handle this since the available bandwidth would have to be shared resulting in bad scalability of the system. Instead different transfer methods are used: connected robots can exchange messages through wired LVDS, close but unconnected robots can communicate via bluetooth and for longer distances wireless LAN is available.
LVDS
To allow a connected net of robots to act like a parallel computer a reliable communication with high bandwidth is necessary. Thus, an LVDS-based full-duplex serial link was chosen because it is quite insensitive to electromagnetic disturbance while allowing very high frequencies. With 8 required wires it is also suitable to be conducted through an autonomously connectable conjunction.
Development State
| Task | State | Work | Precondition | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | bidirectional communication | in progress | (2) | - |
| 2 | initialization after espablishing new connection | in progress | (2) | - |
| 3 | routing | in progress | (2) | - |
| 4 | deadlock resolving / investigation | open | - | |
| ... | ||||
Bluetooth
Each robot will be equipped with a (single-chip) bluetooth module.
The bluetooth module provides an UART interface for both data and
commands and includes a firmware that handles the protocol to
establish a connection with another bluetooth device. The range and
bandwidth should be sufficient for coordinating commands within
small groups of seperate robots.
Additionally this brings the comfortbale ability of monitoring and
controlling the robot with a PDA which is even more important since
the robot itself has - except a couple of state LEDs - no output
devises.
Development State
| Task | State | Work | Precondition | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | selection of apropriate hardware | open | - | |
| 2 | design of required hardware (?) | open | - | |
| 3 | manufacturing of required hardware (?) | - | ||
| 4 | programming required software | open | - | |
| 5 | verification | open | - | |
| ... | ||||
Wireless LAN
To allow the system spreading over a greater area as the range of the bluetooth communication can cover wireless LAN is added. Due to the greater power consumption higher costs and larger electronics compared to bluetooth not every robot is equiped with it. Instead an individual mounting allows the carrying robot to pass the messages from all physically connected robots or those within the range of Bluetooth over longer distances. Thus, if every group of robots includes at least one with a wireless LAN mounting the communication between all robots (and the base station) can be maintained within the full range of the wireless LAN.
Development State
| Task | State | Work | Precondition | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | selection of apropriate hardware | open | - | |
| 2 | design of required hardware (?) | open | - | |
| 3 | manufacturing of required hardware (?) | - | ||
| 4 | programming required software | open | - | |
| 5 | verification | open | - | |
| ... | ||||