ALiCE II: Cellular Wireless Internet Communication Subsystem for an Autonomous Line-Crawling Robot Designed for Manitoba Hydro

The is the fifth in a series of research reports from the first phase of the ALiCE II project. This report presents the background and technical details of the cellular wireless internet communication subsystem for the Autonomous Line Crawling Equipment (ALiCE II) robot. ALiCE II is a second generation version of a new family of autonomous line-crawling robotic devices using swarm intelligence system engineering design principles introduced during the past 3 years. Specifically, this report gives the details for the current design of the ALiCE II telecommunication system that includes an implementation using Telus Mobility as a service provider and includes a plan to compare Telus with a similar service offered by Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS). ALiCE II represents the combined efforts of Maciej Borkowski, Christopher Henry and Dan Lockery. The main architect of ALiCE II has been Dan Lockery. ALiCE I was a single line-crawling robot designed by Vitaliy Degetyarov in 1999 as part of his M.Sc. project, which was also funded by Manitoba Hydro. ALiCE II is the focus of Dan Lockery’s M.Sc. research project. This research work has been funded by Manitoba Hydro.