Wireless Local Area Network Technologies as Communication Solutions for Unmanned Surface Vehicles

As the number of research activities and practical deployments of unmanned vehicles has shown a rapid growth, topics related to their communication with operator and external infrastructure became of high importance. As a result a trend of employing IP communication for this purpose is emerging and can be expected to bring significant advantages. However, its employment can be expected to be most effective using broadband communication technologies such as Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). To verify the effectiveness of such an approach in a specific case of surface unmanned vehicles, the paper includes an overview of IP-based MAVLink communication advantages and requirements, followed by a laboratory and field-experiment study of selected WLAN technologies, compared to popular narrowband communication solutions. The conclusions confirm the general applicability of IP/WLAN communication for surface unmanned vehicles, providing an overview of their advantages and pointing out deployment requirements.