Towards wireless sensor, actuator and robot networks: Conceptual framework, challenges and perspectives

The design of intelligent autonomous systems able to sense, react and control the environment or complex processes has been a long term research desideratum. By integrating the concepts of mobile multi-robot systems and wireless sensor and actuator networks into a single framework, a powerful technology can be obtained, promising to serve as a backbone for complex distributed and mobile control applications. In this context new research challenges and opportunities have opened up. This paper defines the new integrated concept of wireless sensor, actuator and robot networks, surveys the current state-of-art in the field and presents design requirements and open research issues.