RobotNEST: Toward a Viable Testbed for IoT-Enabled Environments and Connected and Autonomous Robots

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), including delivery robots, security robots, and automated wheelchairs, are very promising for improving the quality of life, safety, mobility, and productivity. To deploy such sensor-rich AMRs in real-world society, we have to resolve not only technical challenges but also ethical and societal issues. In addition, since multiple companies are developing different types of AMRs individually, we have to design and develop practical platform to enable safe cooperation and collaboration before using them in the society. Hence, in this letter, we present a viable Nagoya Experimental Site and Testbed named
RobotNEST
developed at Nagoya City, Japan, where we leverage vehicular communications and edge/cloud computing technologies to develop cooperative mobile robots. RobotNEST provides real-world AMRs, experimental fields, learning kits, and infrastructural sensors and communications, including 5G private networks. We also introduce multiple developed applications at RobotNEST that enable safe cooperation for autonomous robots. Finally, we discuss the scalability and limitations of the testbed and conclude with future research directions.