Safe and reliable coverage control
Dušan M. Stipanović, Christopher G. Valicka, Claire Jennifer Tomlin, Thomas Bewley · Numerical Algebra Control and Optimization · 2013
In this paper we consider a problem of designing control laws formultiple mobile agents trying to accomplish three objectives. Oneof the objectives is to sense a given compact domain whilesatisfying the other objective which is to avoid collisionsbetween the agents themselves as well as with the obstacles. Tokeep the communication links between the agents reliable, theagents need to stay relatively close during the sensing operationwhich is the third and final objective. The design of control lawsis based on carefully constructed objective functions and on anassumption that the agents' dynamic models are nonlinear yetaffine in control laws. As an illustration of some performancecharacteristics of the proposed control laws, a numerical exampleis provided.