Navigation, Positioning and Wireless Communication of the Companion Robot in Outdoor Conditions

Dear Colleagues,

The increase in human life expectancy is a demographic process appearing all over the world for many years. It is a socially beneficial process but incredibly challenging from the point of view of the world economy. The share of older people in society is increasing, and by 2050, it is predicted to be over 50%. Moreover, the unexpected coronavirus pandemic has shown that the ability to deliver goods is of great new importance, especially in a safe, non-contact, and sterile manner. The need to limit mobility and interpersonal relations, especially of the elderly, requires searching for new solutions that would reduce human participation in these activities to the necessary minimum. These two phenomena are a clear rationale for research and development work on the companion robot that overrides tasks to provide care services. Therefore, the actions are of no minor importance to adjusting robots to new tasks. Among them, positioning and navigation of the robot should be distinguished, including determining the permissible position error in an urbanized environment, and robot communication with the environment, with the assumed level of data transmission security.

Among the methods already considered in robot operation are positioning with a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), cell ID (E-CID) identification, time difference of arrival (TDoA) via wireless points access, and sensor-based positioning. Each of them takes into account the different tiers and the set of characteristics that user equipment may possess.

At the same time, currently, the greatest positioning range is achieved through GNSS, namely, using GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou systems. However, this technique does not always have an optimal performance. The problem is, for example, the multipath error in a densely urbanized area. Another limitation is that the machine or device (e.g., robot) does not provide an interface satellite connection.

As an alternative to GNSS navigation, special attention should be paid to TDoA-based techniques, which provide good accuracy both outdoors and indoors and can be used in 3D environments. As 5G grows, other new methods and techniques arise to increase the deployment possibilities of innovative positioning systems. One of these could be a technique of collecting fingerprints. This has been developed to be a three-dimensional location of objects. However, its accuracy depends on whether the environment considered during the calibration changes.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to cover issues related to navigation, positioning, and wireless communication with particular applications to companion robots, including methods and issues that may have a direct or indirect impact on the implementation of tasks by such robots, e.g., communication with road infrastructure (R2I robot-to-infrastructure), communication with pedestrians, communication interfaces, risk analysis, cybersecurity issues, and reliability aspects. Papers concerning issues related to secure information exchange as well as data quality assurance and energies aspects are also welcomed.

Dr. Karolina Krzykowska-Piotrowska
Prof. Mirosław Siergiejczyk
Guest Editors

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