preview

The Problem Of Providing Coverage Using A Group Of Mobile Agents

Decent Essays
Open Document

The problem of providing coverage using a group of mobile agents is investigated, where it is desired to minimize the overall coverage metric (service cost) while achieving maximum coverage with minimum actuator energy required by each agent. In addition, a distributed multi-agent area coverage control (MAACC) law is then provided which guarantees the convergence of agents to the optimal configuration with respect to the cost (coverage metric) function. A common assumption in all of the coverage control results is that the distribution of sensory information in the environment is known apriori by all agents. The proposed cooperative area coverage control framework is based on two interdependent tasks: (i) online learning of the coverage area and storing of the data in the form of a “probability map”; and (ii) utilization of the probability map (which is used as a search map) and other data collected to compute online a positional error trajectory (e(t)) for the agents to follow at specified sampling time steps. The group of agents is considered as being a group of autonomous agents which exchange data but ultimately make their own decisions based on the received data collected during an area coverage mission. In addition to the probability map, each agent in a multi-agent system transmits its position information to its neighbours and receives the same information from them. The agents possess the probability maps (made possible via time-varying density function) of targets

Get Access