Network performance of wireless cloud-based robots with local processing

Abstract

With the impending nature of the Internet of Things (IoT), it is important that devices proposed to be networked to the system operate in such a way as to be non-disruptive to the operation of the network. Devices should only use network bandwidth as needed for their operation. To maintain a minimal network footprint which is conducive to the operation of the network, IoT devices should perform a significant amount of processing locally and not depend on remote or cloud resources any more than necessary. This work presents development of a cloud computing infrastructure for networked heterogeneous robotic systems in open-source robot operating system (ROS). This work demonstrates the minimal impact on network performance by devices which use a significant amount of local processing for their operation. Using a virtual datacenter with (5) host servers of 68 GHz processing capability and 160 GB RAM, a number of Kobuki Turtlebots and LEGO EV3 robots are connected to cloud services on the network through the Robot Operating System. Each robot is connected to the cloud via wireless network. A varying number of Turtlebots are tested under low- and high-bandwidth conditions while performing computations related to robot operation locally. The latency and data integrity of the network connections are measured under these conditions and presented along with recommendations for further work.