TARANTULAS: mobility-enhanced wireless sensor-actuator networks

Amidst the numerous active research efforts in wireless sensor networks which aim to push beyond the limits, we aim to significantly enhance the effectiveness of wireless sensors by integrating controlled mobility to realize a networked system of mobile sensors that functions collectively as an integrated unit. The All-teRrain Advanced Network of Ubiquitous mobile Asynchronous Systems (TARANTULAS) project builds a system of networked wireless sensors and actuators carried on mobile robots that are able to operate in all kinds of terrain. To achieve this objective involves the integration of three key research areas: robotics, ad hoc networking and, localization and positioning. We not only use the robots to improve the connectivity and localization of the sensor networks, they concurrently search for targets. In this paper, we present key elements of the algorithms and technologies developed by the project. In particular, we show that the mobile robots and static nodes mutually support each other: robots move to fill the communication gaps to enhance connectivity and localization while static nodes serve as landmark nodes to help robots search for targets