Low Latency Peer to Peer Robot Wireless Communication with Edge Computing

Abstract

A new peer-to-peer wireless communication platform is the technology developed for a mobile robot that works in a smart factory. It features high bandwidth and low latency communications such that the mobile robot can communicate with an edge computer in real-time application. In our demonstration, a mobile robot is loaded with sensors and connected to an edge computer and a serial link manipulator. Successfully implement the algorithm on the edge computer using Lidar scan from the mobile robot during operations, the positions of the mobile robot are precisely determined. The Lidar scan, which is 2873 bytes, can be real-time updated at 150 milliseconds with a latency of 1.5 milliseconds. Our proposed wireless network can connect all the machines in an automation cell, i.e., a mobile robot, a manipulator, a warehouse, and an edge computer. Particularly, on our edge computer, the edge computer collects all the data from all the machines in-house to generate an up-to-date map used to control the automation cell during the robot's collaboration work. Here, a use case is where the mobile robot picks up a package from the manipulator and then delivers it to the warehouse. In the meantime, both the mobile robot and the manipulator are in motion during the package transfer.