Distributed allocation of mobile sensing swarms in gyre flows

TL;DR

This paper develops and validates distributed control policies for mobile sensor swarms to maintain desired spatial distributions in gyre flows, leveraging environmental flow data and stability analysis.

Contribution

It introduces hybrid control policies that utilize flow dynamics and environmental noise, with stability proofs and validation in realistic ocean flow models and experimental data.

Findings

Control policies effectively maintain sensor distribution in gyre flows.

Validation shows the approach works with real ocean data.

Compared to baseline, the method improves distribution stability.

Abstract

We address the synthesis of distributed control policies to enable a swarm of homogeneous mobile sensors to maintain a desired spatial distribution in a geophysical flow environment, or workspace. In this article, we assume the mobile sensors (or robots) have a "map" of the environment denoting the locations of the Lagrangian coherent structures or LCS boundaries. Based on this information, we design agent-level hybrid control policies that leverage the surrounding fluid dynamics and inherent environmental noise to enable the team to maintain a desired distribution in the workspace. We establish the stability properties of the ensemble dynamics of the distributed control policies. Since realistic quasi-geostrophic ocean models predict double-gyre flow solutions, we use a wind-driven multi-gyre flow model to verify the feasibility of the proposed distributed control strategy and compare the proposed control strategy with a baseline deterministic allocation strategy. Lastly, we validate the control strategy using actual flow data obtained by our coherent structure experimental testbed.