Collaborative Visual Area Coverage

TL;DR

This paper proposes a distributed control method for a network of mobile aerial agents with cameras to optimize ground area coverage and quality, balancing altitude and coverage in a collaborative manner.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed control law that maximizes coverage quality by adjusting aerial agents' positions based on their camera's field of view and altitude.

Findings

Control law effectively improves coverage quality in simulations

Distributed approach enables scalable coordination among agents

Coverage quality is balanced with altitude adjustments

Abstract

This article examines the problem of visual area coverage by a network of Mobile Aerial Agents (MAAs). Each MAA is assumed to be equipped with a downwards facing camera with a conical field of view which covers all points within a circle on the ground. The diameter of that circle is proportional to the altitude of the MAA, whereas the quality of the covered area decreases with the altitude. A distributed control law that maximizes a joint coverage-quality criterion by adjusting the MAAs' spatial coordinates is developed. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is evaluated through simulation studies.