TopBot: automated network topology detection with a mobile robot

We have demonstrated that a properly-equipped mobile robot can easily construct a detailed map of the wireless coverage of an urban environment. The Autonomous Vehicle for Exploration and Navigation of Urban Environments (AVENUE) mobile robot was successfully used to generate such maps in both manual and autonomous modes of operation. The resulting database contained a wealth of information for many different positions in the region, with a list of all access points viewable from each location together with a quality measure (the signal-to-noise ratio) of every detected signal. At a later time, the AVENUE system effectively used the data in this map to determine the approximate position of the robot as it traveled through the urban area.