Image and Command Transmission Over the 5G Network for Teleoperation of Mobile Robots

Human oversight can benefit scenarios with complex tasks, such as pallet docking and loading and unloading containers, beyond the current capabilities of autonomous systems without any failures. Furthermore, teleoperation systems allow remote control of mobile ground robots, especially with the surge of 5G technology that promises reliable and low latency communication. Current works research on exploring the latest features from the 5G standard, including ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (uRLLC) and network slicing. However, these features may not be available depending on the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and communication devices. Thus, this work proposes a network architecture for the teleoperation of ground mobile robots in industrial environments using commercially available devices over the 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) standard. Experimental results include an evaluation of the network and End-to-End (E2E) latency of the proposed system. The results show that the proposed architecture enables teleoperation, achieving an average E2E latency of 347.19 ms.