Interference aware path planning for mobile robots under joint communication and sensing in mmWave networks

The beyond fifth-generation (B5G) and emerging sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks are considered as key enablers in supporting a diversified set of applications for industrial mobile robots (MRs). In this paper, we consider mobile robots that autonomously roam on an industrial floor and perform a variety of tasks at different locations, whilst utilizing high directivity beamformers in millimeter wave (mmWave) small cells for joint communication and sensing. In such scenarios, the potential close proximity of MRs connected to different base stations, may cause excessive levels of interference having as a net result a decrease in the overall achievable data rate and network service degradation. To mitigate this effect an interference aware path planning algorithm is proposed by explicitly taking into account both achievable communication and sensing performance. More specifically, the proposed heuristic scheme aims to find paths with minimal interfering time whilst improving the overall joint communication and sensing quality of service. A wide set of numerical investigations reveal that the proposed heuristic path planning scheme for the mmWave networked mobile robots can improve the overall achievable communication throughput and the sensing mutual information by up to 35.6% and 23.6% respectively compared with an interference oblivious scheme. Most importantly, those gains are attained without penalizing noticeably the total travel time of the MRs.