Seifaei Z, Reißland T, Lübke M, Dehghani D, Borji A, Franchi N (2026)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Conference contribution, Conference Contribution
Publication year: 2026
Event location: Boston, MA, USA
Medium Access Control protocol selection critically
determines coordination reliability in multi-robot networks, yet
most studies judge protocols by packet count alone, ignoring
whether updates arrive on time. We evaluate Time Division
Multiple Access (TDMA), Priority-based scheduling, and Carrier
Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) in a hub-spoke scenario where
one static coordinator (hub) broadcasts coordination commands
to seven mobile robots (spokes) moving up to 35m away. Using
a physically consistent log-distance channel model with Rayleigh
fading across path loss exponents of 2.5 to 4.5, and validated over
50 independent Monte Carlo iterations, we show that Prioritybased
scheduling reduces the time during which spokes lose
contact with the hub — meaning they receive no coordination
update for longer than 0.5 s — by up to 13-fold compared
to TDMA under the same channel. Simulation results reveal
three distinct operating regions: at low Path Loss Exponent
(PLE) (≤ 3.0) all protocols perform comparably; at intermediate
PLE (3.0–4.0) protocol choice becomes the dominant factor; at
high PLE (> 4.0) path loss dominates regardless of protocol.
Additionally, mean hub-update staleness — measuring how old
the coordinator’s last message is when a robot acts on it —
consistently ranks Priority < CSMA < TDMA across all channel
conditions, showing that even when delivery rates are similar
across protocols, MAC scheduling policy produces measurably
different information freshness at the controller, with Prioritybased
scheduling resulting the lowest staleness across all channel
conditions.
APA:
Seifaei, Z., Reißland, T., Lübke, M., Dehghani, D., Borji, A., & Franchi, N. (2026). MAC Protocol Selection for Hub-Spoke Multi-Robot Coordination: A Communications-Control Co-Design Study. In Proceedings of the VTC2026-Fall. Boston, MA, USA.
MLA:
Seifaei, Zahra, et al. "MAC Protocol Selection for Hub-Spoke Multi-Robot Coordination: A Communications-Control Co-Design Study." Proceedings of the VTC2026-Fall, Boston, MA, USA 2026.
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