An Energy - Efficient Transmission Power Control Protocol for Cooperative Robotics

Except where reference is made to the work of others, the work described in this thesis is my own or was done in collaboration with my advisory committee. This thesis does not include proprietary or classified information. Permission is granted to Auburn University to make copies of this thesis at its discretion, upon the request of individuals or institutions and at their expense. The author reserves all publication rights. 63 Typed Pages Directed by Thaddeus Roppel Severe energy constraints inherent in multi-robot networks dictate that communication be performed as efficiently as possible to enable longer network lifetime and successful task execution. Therefore, energy-aware communication protocols are necessary for network longevity. A number of energy-oriented protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are proposed in the literature. However, the computational intensity and generic nature of these protocols render them unsuitable for cooperative robotic networks. In this thesis, a Transmission Power Control Protocol (TPCP) to enhance the energy efficiency and network lifetime of an IEEE 802.11g-based cooperative robotic ad-hoc network is presented. The proposed protocol varies the transmission range of a node to exclusively accommodate an independent node's neighbor set. Such a scheme is simple, preserves connectivity, and allows low power transmissions. Simulations were performed to compare the energy consumption of the network with the conventional fixed transmission range and TPCP approaches. v Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm increases network lifetime by more than 20%. vi Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to Dr. Roppel for his time, advice, understanding and patient encouragement through the winding journey towards this thesis. I owe many thanks to Dr. Agrawal, Dr. Wentworth and Dr. Mao for their guidance and acceptance to serve on my thesis committee. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the people who have made the completion of this thesis possible: Chris Wilson, for the long hours he spent in bringing me up to speed on the CRR SARA project. Yogesh Kondareddy, for his invaluable pointers on the technical aspects of this work. Sandeep Neeli, for being there for me through it all. My family, for their unwavering faith in me and for their steadfast support in all my endeavors. And last, but never the least, a final word of thanks to the Almighty for guiding me thus far. vii Style manual or journal used Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Journal Style (together with the style known as …