Abstract:
Communications and communications protocols will play an
important role in mobile robot systems able to address
real world applications. A poorly integrated "stack" of
communications protocols, or protocols which are poorly
matched to the functional and performance
characteristics of the underlying physical
communications links, can greatly reduce the
effectiveness of an otherwise well implemented robotic
or networked sensor system. The proliferation of
Internet-like networks in military as well as civilian
domains has motivated research to address some of the
performance limitations TCP suffers when using FF and
other media with long bandwidth-delay, dynamic
connectivity and error- prone links. Beyond these
performance issues, however, TCP is poorly matched to
the requirements of mobile robot and other
quasi-autonomous systems: it is oriented to providing a
continuous data stream, rather than discrete messages,
and the canonical "socket" interface conceals short
losses of communications connectivity, but simply gives
up and forces the Application layer software to deal
with longer losses. For the Multipurpose Security and
Surveillance Mission Platform (MSSMP) project, a
software applique is being developed that will run on
top of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to provide a
reliable message-based Transport service. In addition, a
Session layer protocol is planned to support the
effective transfer of control of multiple platforms
among multiple control stations.
| Limitations: |
 APPROVED FOR PUBLIC
RELEASE |
| Pages: |
13 |
| Report Date: |
OCT 1997 |
| Report number:
|
A005224 |
|
| |
|
Keywords relating to
this report:
