Realtime Wireless Network Emulation for Evaluation of Teleoperated Mobile Robots

The evaluation of remotely supervised robotic systems must include exposure to probable network disturbances to assess and tune their behavior for similar situations. This paper presents the vSTING module, a solution to evaluate a system's network resilience with minimal installation overhead. It can subject a network link to constraints provided in various ways: user input, recorded network traces, or location-based. In the first evaluation step, the general ability to constrain a network link is confirmed. Next, the teleoperation performance of multiple robots is challenged. Finally, the challenging network environment recorded during a mission is replayed. The evaluation validates vSTING as a useful tool to assess and develop the resilience of systems against the network disturbances expected with real-world wireless connectivity.