Multiple modern robotic applications benefit from centralized cognition and processing schemes. However, modern equipped robotic platforms can output a large amount of data, which may exceed the capabilities of modern wireless communication systems if all data is transmitted without further consideration. This research presents a multi-agent, centralized, and real-time 3D point cloud map merging scheme for ceaselessly connected robotic agents. Centralized architectures enable mission awareness to all agents at all times, making tasks such as search and rescue more effective. The centralized component is placed on an edge server, ensuring low communication latency, while all agents access the server utilizing a fifth-generation (5G) network. In addition, the proposed solution introduces a communication-aware control function that regulates the transmissions of map instances to prevent the creation of significant data congestion and communication latencies as well as address conditions where the robotic agents traverse in limited to no coverage areas. The presented framework is agnostic of the used localization and mapping procedure, while it utilizes the full power of an edge server. Finally, the efficiency of the novel established framework is being experimentally validated based on multiple scenarios.

The fifth generation (5G) cellular network technology is mature and increasingly utilized in many industrial and robotics applications, while an important functionality is the advanced Quality of Service (QoS) features. Despite the prevalence of 5G QoS discussions in the related literature, there is a notable absence of real-life implementations and studies concerning their application in time-critical robotics scenarios. This article considers the operation of time-critical applications for 5G-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and how their operation can be improved by the possibility to dynamically switch between QoS data flows with different priorities. As such, we introduce a robotics oriented analysis on the impact of the 5G QoS functionality on the performance of 5G-enabled UAVs. Furthermore, we introduce a novel framework for the dynamic selection of distinct 5G QoS data flows that is autonomously managed by the 5G-enabled UAV. This problem is addressed in a novel feedback loop fashion utilizing a probabilistic finite state machine (PFSM). Finally, the efficacy of the proposed scheme is experimentally validated with a 5G-enabled UAV in a real-world 5G stand-alone (SA) network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWtMOlVMEFI&t=1s

This thesis introduces a novel framework for enabling intelligent machines and robots with the fifth-generation (5G) cellular network technology. Autonomous robots, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs), and more, can notably benefit from multi-agent collaboration, human supervision, or operation guidance, as well as from external computational units such as cloud edge servers, in all of which a framework to utilize reliable communication infrastructure is needed. Autonomous robots are often employed to alleviate humans by operating demanding missions such as inspection and data collection in harsh environments or time-critical operations in industrial environments - to name a few. For delivering data to other robots to maximize the effectiveness of the considered mission, for executing complex algorithms by offloading them into the edge cloud, or for including a human operator/supervisor into the loop, the 5G network and its advanced Quality of Service (QoS) features can be employed to facilitate the establishment of such a framework. This work focuses on establishing a baseline for integrating various time-critical robotics platforms and applications with a 5G network. These applications include offloading computationally intensive Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithms for trajectory tracking of UAVs into the edge cloud, adapting data sharing in multi-robot systems based on network conditions, and enhancing network-aware surrounding autonomy components. We have identified a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) crucially affecting the performance of network-dependent robots and applications. We have proposed novel solutions and mechanisms to meet these requirements, which aim to combine traditional robotics techniques to enhance mission reliability with the exploitation of 5G features such as the QoS framework. Ultimately, our goal was to develop solutions that adhere to the essential paradigm of co-designing robotics with networks. We thoroughly evaluated all presented research using real-life platforms and 5G networks.

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-oriented applications have been growing worldwide. Thus, there is a strong interest in using UAVs for applications requiring wide-area connectivity coverage. Such applications might be power line inspection, road inspection, offshore site monitoring, wind turbine inspections, and others. The utilization of cellular networks, such as the fifth-generation (5G) technology, is often considered to meet the requirement of wide-area connectivity. This study quantifies the performance of 5G-enabled UAVs when sensor data throughput requirements are within the 5G network’s capability and when throughput requirements significantly exceed the capability of the 5G network, respectively. Our experimental results show that in the first case, the 5G network maintains bounded latency, and the application behaves as expected. In the latter case, the overloading of the 5G network results in increased latency, dropped packets, and overall degradation of the application performance. Our findings show that offloading processes requiring moderate sensor data rates work well, while transmitting all the raw data generated by the UAV’s sensors is not possible. This study highlights and experimentally demonstrates the impact of critical parameters that affect real-life 5G-enabled UAVs that utilize the edge-offloading power of a 5G cellular network.