Communication-aware Adaptive Speed And Energy Control For A Low-cost Ble Mobile Robot

Abstract

Low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Robots Usually Execute The Last Received Command At A Fixed Duty Cycle, So Wheel-speed Error, Link Degradation, Obstacle Proximity And Energy Use Are Not Coordinated. This Paper Presents A Lightweight Communication-aware Speed Controller For An ESP32-class BLE Robot And Verifies It By Monte-Carlo Simulation (N = 100 Trials Per Condition). A Communication Quality Index (CQI), Computed On Board From Packet Loss, Command Latency And Heartbeat Freshness, Is Mapped To A Speed Limit. The Target Speed Is The Minimum Of The Communication, Obstacle And Motor Limits And Is Tracked By An Encoder-based PI Loop. Five Configurations (A0–A4) Are Compared In An Ablation. In Simulation, Closed-loop Control Reduced Tracking Error At 75% Speed From 52.2 To 0.81 RPM; CQI Adaptation Reduced Unsupervised Travel In A Degraded-link Mission By 89% (0.228 To 0.025 M) At The Cost Of 24% Longer Mission Time And 7% More Energy Per Metre; The Obstacle Term Removed Collisions That Otherwise Occurred In 16% And 50% Of Runs At 75% And 100% Speed; And Power-monitor Fault Latching Cut Stall Energy By 87%. All Results Are Simulation Outputs Under Stated Assumptions; Hardware Validation Is Outlined As Future Work.

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