Wireless Communication Networks Supported by Autonomous UAVs and Mobile Ground Robots

Communication technology is a major contributor to our lifestyles. Improving the performance of a communication system brings various benefits to human beings. This book covers two typical such systems: wireless sensor networks and cellular networks. For wireless sensor networks, it presents the approaches of using mobile robots or UAVs to collect sensory data from sensor nodes; for cellular networks, it discusses the approaches to using UAVs to work as aerial base stations to serve cellular users. This book presents recent development on the topic of mobile robot (ground robots or UAVs)-supported wireless communications. It gives a comprehensive review of the state of the art, presents approaches in several new scenarios of wireless communications, and discusses future research directions. Specifically, it will cover: 1) the challenges involved in the two considered networks (wireless sensor networks and cellular networks); 2) the existing approaches (e.g., how to use the public transportation vehicles to play the role of mobile sinks to collect sensory data from sensor nodes); and 3) open questions and potential methods to address the open questions. Gives a comprehensive understanding of the development of mobile robot-supported wireless communication approachesPresents the latest approaches of mobile robot-supported wireless communication including the scheduling approaches for the situation with multiple robots and the online and reactive navigation algorithmIncludes interesting research scenarios that include the system model, problem statement, solution and results, so that readers will be able to design their own systemPresents the unresolved research issues and future research directions