Implementation of a ROS Node for Roaming Between APs for an Autonomous Mobile Robot

The wide field of implementation of mobile robotics has increased the need for remote interconnection of a control and visualization station with the robot to monitor the data acquired by the robot’s peripherals, with wireless networks based on the 802.11 protocol being the most optimal for its ease of implementation, bandwidth and operating frequencies. Within these networks, effective service transfer between the Access Points and the robot must be sought so as not to lose communication and for it to send the data in real time by it. For this reason, in this article the implementation of a ROS node that performs the Roaming process based on the intensity of the signal received RSSI from the Access Points of the network is presented. This node runs in parallel to the teleoperated and autonomous operation of the robot. With this node, it was possible to maintain an average link status of 81.15%, signal strength 53.18 dBm, and throughput for the download link of 163.45 Kbps and upload link of 13.45 Mbps, sufficient to maintain a stable interconnection between the control and visualization station and the robot.