Asynchronous and Dynamic Coverage Control Scheme for Persistent Surveillance Missions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modular, asynchronous coverage control scheme for multi-agent persistent surveillance that ensures efficient, collision-free, and balanced coverage in dynamic, communication-limited environments, with proven convergence properties.

Contribution

It presents a novel decomposition-based, asynchronous coverage control framework that separates task assignment from motion planning, suitable for dynamic environments with limited communication.

Findings

Guarantees connected, comprehensive coverage of the environment.

Ensures subregions are only temporarily uncovered.

Achieves convergence to Pareto-optimal coverage regions.

Abstract

A decomposition-based coverage control scheme is proposed for multi-agent, persistent surveillance missions operating in a communication-constrained, dynamic environment. The proposed approach decouples high-level task assignment from low-level motion planning in a modular framework. Coverage assignments and surveillance parameters are managed by a central base station, and transmitted to mobile agents via unplanned and asynchronous exchanges. Coverage updates promote load balancing, while maintaining geometric and temporal characteristics that allow effective pairing with generic path planners. Namely, the proposed scheme guarantees that (i) coverage regions are connected and collectively cover the environment, (ii) subregions may only go uncovered for bounded periods of time, (iii) collisions (or sensing overlaps) are inherently avoided, and (iv) under static event likelihoods, the collective coverage regions converge to a Pareto-optimal configuration. This management scheme is then paired with a generic path planner satisfying loose assumptions. The scheme is illustrated through simulated surveillance missions.