Receding horizon control of mobile robots for locating unknown wireless sensor networks

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a receding horizon control approach for the problem of locating unknown wireless sensor networks by using a mobile robot. Design/methodology/approach A control framework is used and consists of two levels: one is a decision level, while the other is a control level. In the decision level, a spatiotemporal probability occupancy grid method is used to give the possible positions of all nodes in sensor networks, where the posterior probability distributions of sensor nodes are estimated by capturing the transient signals. In the control level, a virtual robot is designed to move along the edge of obstacles such that the problem of obstacle avoidance can be transformed into a coordination problem of multiple robots. On the basis of the possible positions of sensor nodes and virtual robots, a receding horizon control approach is proposed to control mobile robots to locate sensor nodes, where a temporary target position method is utilized to avoid several special obstacles. Findings When the number of obstacles increases, the average localization errors between the actual locations and the estimated locations significantly increase. Originality/value The proposed control approach can guide the mobile robot to avoid obstacles and deal with the corresponding dynamical events so as to locate all sensor nodes for an unknown wireless network.