Design and implementation of internal and external communication systems for a fleet of autonomous robots

This thesis regards the design and development of the communication side of a fleet of autonomous service robots operating in the University Citadel of the California State University, Los Angeles. This work is part of the project run by Innotech-System, a start-up based in San Diego, that aims to create an autonomous delivery robot service for students. After a short introduction on robotics and service robots, the first chapter consists in an overview of the project in all his parts, SLAM, Path Planning, Robot Architecture, and a presentation of already existing example of delivery service robots on the market. The focus is then shifted on all the crucial communication aspects of the network of robots. At first, the Internal Robot Communication structure, with all the ROS framework’s topics and signals. Second, the Robot to Robot (R2R), or Machine to Machine (M2M), communication, with a short description of all the nodes and codes for the data exchange between robots. Third, the Robot to Infrastructure Communication (R2I), with all the crucial design and implementation detail that connect the robot to the Internet and the external world. To complete the work, the fourth chapter will present a simple WebPage able to control the robots from remote, check their status and execute tasks. With the communication structure complete, in the final chapter is then presented a full simulation of the system, from the user’s request to the executed task.