Persistent coverage of a two-dimensional manifold subject to time-varying disturbances
William Bentz, Dimitra Panagou · 2017
This paper presents a persistent coverage algorithm for multiple agents subject to 3-D rigid body kinematics. Each agent uses a forward-facing sensing footprint, modeled as an anisotropic spherical sector, to cover a 2-D manifold. The manifold is subject to continual collisions by high speed particles. Particle trajectories are estimated online with an extended Kalman filter using noisy spherical coordinate position measurements. Predicted impact points for each particle, along with associated covariances, are used to generate normally distributed coverage decay. This directs agents to explore in the vicinity of both future and past impact points. The efficacy of the algorithm is demonstrated through simulation.