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W
ith the explosive growth of work connectivity—have contributed to the phe-
embedded computing hard- nomenal increase in the number of computers in
ware, it is possible to conceive our physical environment. Researchers now increas-
many new networked robotic ingly accept the notion that future appliances (in
applications for diverse offices, transportation, homes, and schools) will be
domains ranging from urban based on a multitude of small embedded computers
industrial and environmental disaster search and with limited (but growing) functionality and net-
rescue to house cleaning. Designing reliable work connections. On their own, they are not phys-
software for such systems is a challeng- ically mobile—an often-ignored
ing problem. But Internet communi- characteristic of these appliances.
cation can facilitate such robotics by Instead, they will depend on
reducing uncertainty while human users for their placement
providing direct user and transport. Our focus here is
input and assistance; the class of embedded systems
robotics facilitate commu- with built-in capacity for
nication by providing physi- autonomous mobility, better
cal mobility at a distance. Here, we known as robots. Introducing these devices into
explore methods for controlling and coordinating environments built primarily for people raises inter-
embedded mobile systems, or robots, interacting esting and challenging questions:
with other computers over wireless networks in
human environments. • What is the best way to control and coordinate
Ubiquitous embedded computing is here to stay ubiquitous robots?
[12]. Information appliances, laptops, palmtops, • How should they be used? What services can
and wearable computers are examples of the first they provide?
wave of this emerging information environment. • How does their software differ from software for
Two factors—Moore’s law [12] and improved net- other embedded systems?
• What related safety and human factors issues do ure includes several robots exploring the interior of
we have to account for? a building. They are on a local wireless network con-
nected to the Internet backbone, allowing them to
We use the term “embedded” to reflect the fact that receive information and instructions and send back
these robots communicate over a wireless network. data. For example, if the building being explored is
Although complex, this communication represents partially collapsed due to an earthquake, a human
the ability to provide richer interaction among specialist may want to direct the robots to find peo-
robots, as well as between robots and other network ple trapped in the rubble and send back their vital
resources. This robust but specialized interaction has signs. Other remote users might exploit audio and
strong implications for the sharing of tasks among video information the robots can provide and com-
robots, as well as for human-robot interaction and municate with people in the building. Moreover,
for on-the-fly reprogramming and adaptation of the connectivity to the Internet allows the robots to
robots on the network (see Figure 1). access Web-based information repositories, includ-
At the University of Southern California’s Robotics ing building maps, to aid their exploration.
Research Laboratories, we are working on a National The traditional approach to robotics (largely
Science Foundation-funded research study called before wireless networks) was an off-line program-
Scalable Coordination of Wireless Robots in collab- ming process in which robot controllers were devel-
oration with the USC Computer Networks and Dis- oped on a desktop computer and downloaded to a
tributed Systems Research Laboratory to address robot’s microcontroller, usually through a serial link.
some of these issues (see netweb.usc.edu/scowr). The new paradigm, enabled by wireless communi-
Our focus is scalable algorithms for the distributed cation, is to develop controllers on the robot itself,
control and coordination of wireless nodes that may since its computer is accessible remotely over the
be robotic, or autonomously mobile. Our goals are network at all times. By using wireless communica-
to address networking and robotics issues in the tion, robot controllers can now take advantage of a
problem domain while recognizing that the wireless variety of networked resources that may be physi-
network also connects conventional computers, cally attached to another robot, an immobile com-
wearables, portables, and immobile sensors, along puter, or an online database.
with robots. Our efforts addressing the issues involved in
Here, we address the issues and ideas related to the embedding robots in the Internet seek to achieve a
control and coordination of robots as entities dual synergy: communication facilitating robotics
embedded in wireless networks connected to the by reducing uncertainty, and robotics facilitating
Internet. The depiction of such a scenario in the fig- communication by providing physical mobility. We
• Localization, referring to robots’ ability to use Inertial sensing and filtering. Techniques for accu-
their sensors and wireless communication to rately estimating the position and orientation of a
compute their positions over time; robot lend themselves to a natural partitioning. One
• Exploration, allowing robots to search and cover class of techniques relies on using onboard inertial
an area, perhaps with some guidelines from a sensing and odometry to keep track of changes in
user; and position. Integrating small changes over time leads to
• Mapping, supporting robots’ ability to collec- an updated position estimate [2]. The second class of
tively create a representation of the environment techniques uses some global sensing method (perhaps
or augment a representation provided by a user. a map or, if outdoors, the global positioning system,
GPS) to update position estimates. The former is
The interplay of these abilities yields robots capa- prone to drifting and depends on knowledge of the
ble of functioning autonomously in relatively initial position; the latter depends on global informa-
unstructured environments. Our concurrent devel- tion not always easy to obtain, as when there is no
opment of them focuses on several key principles: GPS signal, if indoors. The two approaches have been
combined with varying degrees of success. Each has
Multi-robot solutions. In order to be robust, we been studied extensively in robotics, but given the
investigate multi-robot solutions wherever possible, uncertain nature of sensor measurements, the prob-
especially on the key problems of collective mapping, lem of accurate position estimation remains a chal-
exploration, and localization. Our intuition is that, lenge.
with careful design, multiple robots provide redun- Radio signal strength and range. We use two
dancy and hence fault tolerance. A well-designed approaches to investigating radio as a basis for local-
multi-robot solution also reduces global uncertainty, ization. One is coarse-grained in which multiple
even if each individual robot is a relatively noisy transmitters are placed in the environment. Each
source of data. robot is equipped with a receiver that can distinguish
Distributed, bottom-up strategies. We investigate the signature of the transmitters. In any location
distributed, bottom-up strategies, emphasizing those within the environment, the receiver can detect some
scaling to large numbers of robots, thus favoring local, subset of transmitters. The set of locations where the
decentralized ones over global, centralized alterna- same transmitters can be detected form an equiva-
tives. The goals are to endow individual robots with lence class. An environment with N transmitters is
independent abilities and minimal communication thus divided into at most 2N equivalence classes.
needs (each one needs to communicate only with its Although straightforward, this approach is coarse and
nearby neighbors) and provide globally coherent and may not yield the desired granularity in realistic envi-
efficient behavior. ronments. An even more serious problem involves the
The wireless world. We treat the wireless network possibility that a given equivalence class may not be
as a key resource in distributed robotics, seeking ways spatially connected, resulting in the “holes” often
to exploit it without adopting too many restrictive or encountered in wireless communication in cluttered
simplifying assumptions. environments.
Effective autonomous mobility and interaction The other approach is a fine-grain version of the
with the physical world require robustness, so a robot first. Again, each robot in the environment is
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This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant ANI-
9979457, by DARPA under contract DAAE07-98-C-L026 and grant DABT63-99-1-
0015, and by the Office of Naval Research under grants N0014-99-1-0162 and
N00014-95-1-0759. Our work on resource transport using a large robot group is sup-
ported under the DARPA Mobile Autonomous Robot Software (MARS) program (see
www-robotics.usc.edu/projects/mars).