Experimental evaluation of a path switching function to avoid delay spikes in wireless LANs

Abstract

Small unmanned vehicles (UVs), which include aerial, land-based and water-based vehicles, are expected to play important roles in future society. When UV is remotely controlled via a network, a highly reliable and small transmission delay communication channel is indispensable. In terms of transmission delay, a wireless access network often becomes a bottlenecks. We aim to achieve an affordable and high quality communication channel that can be used for UV remote control. In this research, we focused on a shared wireless Local Area Network (LAN), because it can realize low cost communication, at this time. Although cost reduction could be realized by sharing, problems arise in terms of communication quality. Especially, a sudden large delays (delay spikes) are often observed in a shared wireless LAN. To solve the problem, we proposed a path switching function to use two paths on independent two wireless LANs. The function enables to switch path of the communication channel immediately after detecting an occurrence of delay spike. We implemented functions of the proposal and carried out experimental evaluations to elucidate its effectiveness. Experimental results indicate that the proposed function is effective for improving UV controllability.