Experimental validation of link quality prediction using exact self-status of mobility robots in wireless LAN systems

Abstract

Autonomous mobility machines, such as self-driving cars, transportation robots, and automated construction machines, are promising to support or enrich human lives. To further improve such machines, they will be connected to the network via wireless links to be managed, monitored, or remotely operated. The autonomous mobility machines must have self-status based on their positioning system to safely conduct their operations without colliding with other objects. The self-status is not only essential for machine operation but also it is valuable for wireless link quality management. This paper presents self-status-based wireless link quality prediction and evaluates its performance by using a prototype mobility robot combined with a wireless LAN system. The developed robot has functions to measure the throughput and receive signal strength indication and obtain self-status details such as location, direction, and odometry data. Prediction performance is evaluated in offline processing by using the dataset gathered in an indoor experiment. The experiments clarified that, in the 5.6 GHz band, link quality prediction using self-status of the robot forecasted the throughput several seconds into the future, and the prediction accuracies were investigated as dependent on time window size of the target throughput, bandwidth, and frequency gap.