Decentralized control of a group of mobile robots for deployment in sweep coverage

This paper addresses a problem of sweep coverage by deploying a network of autonomous mobile robots. We propose a decentralized control algorithm for the robots to accomplish the sweep coverage. The sweep coverage is achieved by coordinating the robots to move along a given path that is unknown to the vehicles a priori. The motion coordination algorithm is developed based on simple consensus algorithms. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated via numerical simulations. The proposed algorithm would have applications to military and civilian operations.

► We study a problem of sweep coverage by deploying a network of autonomous robots.► A decentralized control algorithm is developed for coordinating autonomous robots.► Consensus algorithms are adopted in developing the decentralized control algorithm.