Autonomous Mobile Radios for Enhancing Wireless Communications through Wireless Tethering in Tunnel-Like Environments

An autonomous Mobile Radio (AMR) in a wireless network is a mobile robot with wireless communication capability whose mission is to achieve a network communications goal through control of its position. Wireless tethering is an AMR behavior for ensuring the quality of wireless links between an AMR and other nodes. We discuss the particular problem of autonomously penetrating a tunnel environment using wirelessly tethered AMRs. Using a realistic, experimentally-derived radio signal propagation model in an underground environment, we present a method of implementing tethering using a consensus variable protocol for motion control as well as a method of estimating the coverage range.