Long-term deployment of a fleet of mobile robots requires reliable and secure two-way communication channels between individual robots and remote human operators for supervision and tasking. Existing open-source solutions to this problem degrade in performance in challenging real-world situations such as intermittent and low-bandwidth connectivity, do not provide security control options, and can be computationally expensive on hardware-constrained mobile robot platforms. In this paper, we present Robofleet, a lightweight open-source system which provides inter-robot communication, remote monitoring, and remote tasking for a fleet of ROS-enabled service-mobile robots that is designed with the practical goals of resilience to network variance and security control in mind. Robofleet supports multi-user, multi-robot communication via a central server. This architecture deduplicates network traffic between robots, significantly reducing overall network load when compared with native ROS communication. This server also functions as a single entrypoint into the system, enabling security control and user authentication. Individual robots run the lightweight Robofleet client, which is responsible for exchanging messages with the Robofleet server. It automatically adapts to adverse network conditions through backpressure monitoring as well as topic-level priority control, ensuring that safety-critical messages are successfully transmitted. Finally, the system includes a web-based visualization tool that can be run on any internet-connected, browser-enabled device to monitor and control the fleet. We compare Robofleet to existing methods of robotic communication, and demonstrate that it provides superior resilience to network variance while maintaining performance that exceeds that of widely-used systems.
翻译:长期部署移动机器人车队需要个体机器人和远程人类操作员之间可靠和安全的双向通信渠道,以进行监督和分配任务。 这个问题的现有开放源码解决方案在挑战现实局势(如间歇和低带宽连接)下的表现在性能上退化,例如间歇和低带宽连接,不提供安全控制选项,在硬件限制的移动机器人平台上可能计算成本昂贵。 在本文中,我们介绍Robofleit,这是一个轻量的开放源系统,提供机器人之间的通信、远程监测和远程任务,为ROS驱动的服务-移动机器人车队提供双向通信渠道,该车队设计的目的是为了应对网络差异和安全控制的实际目标。 Robleot支持多用户,通过中央服务器多带宽的网络通信。这一架构使机器人之间的网络通信流量发生退化,与本地ROMS通信系统通信相比,大大降低整个网络负荷。这个服务器还作为系统中的单一入口点发挥作用,能够进行安全控制和用户认证。 个体机器人运行轻重的 Robfleot客户,负责将信息与网络差异性网络进行互换,同时进行网络的对比,我们通过网络的网络优先级别监测,自动调整网络的网络操作,确保网络的网络运行系统运行,从而顺利地显示。