Wireless Network Architecture for Long range Teleoperation of an Autonomous System

Networked teleoperation (NT) is an emerging area of technology, where human assisted Master and remote Slave devices communicate over a communication network for the exchange of command and sensor feedback information. For long range mobile teleoperation, this information travels over different types of heterogeneous/hybrid networks interconnected together with a compulsory network segment over wireless to permit increased mobility. The independent design of control and network promotes the isolated objectives and the performance is degraded after an integration. It is also challenging if internet is used for teleoperation, instead of point to point communication. The mechanisms of QoS in one network protocol of the heterogeneous network needs mapping on any other network which is usually carried out with a multimedia point of view and not for the critical teleoperation data. The approach for networked teleoperation can be given a new dimension by adding quality of service (QoS) to different flows on need based priority and as a function of control and transparence criteria. This means to alter the network resources for teleoperation objective in order to transport the information to satisfy the end-to-end application needs. The network QoS perspective is important to consider in the co-design approach for teleoperation. However, the true meaning of end to end QoS must be defined for teleoperation. If we consider the QoS from the network point of view, it refers to the management of various flows or users as per their need and precedence. Whereas, from the teleoperation perspective, QoS is related to the quality of control (QoC) which includes stability, transparence and telepresence. Moreover, the human interface may have different requirements as per telepresence feeling which will result in varying network load. To control network QoS, we need to measure or estimate it. Therefore, classification of QoS is performed with a fuzzy inference system which is able to distinguish between varying levels of QoS. In addition, it is also a challenging task for online decision for reconfiguration of network and control performance. We have used supervised methods for classification and prediction of QoS to be used in the proposed approach. Thus, data communication networks treat control information as best effort most of the time. conclusion the communication used in teleoperation uses a dedicated network/communication. In short, a co-design approach is formulated to treat the network QoS as a function of teleoperation objectives which are related to the quality of transparence and control. Alternatively, the video flow is managed in order to effectively reduce the necessary throughput for instants when the network quality is not sufficient. We have considered two cases. First, without taking into account any network QoS mechanism (best effort flows only) and adapting application needs as per the teleoperation objectives. The second one considers a QoS oriented network in between the master and slave, where different priorities can be assigned to the teleoperation flows as per need. In the end, the proposed methodology is implemented on the NeCS-Car benchmark.