Cooperative Visual Convex Area Coverage using a Tessellation-free Strategy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a tessellation-free control strategy for a fleet of mobile aerial agents to efficiently cover convex regions using a gradient ascent algorithm, demonstrated through simulations.

Contribution

A novel tessellation-free approach for area coverage with mobile aerial agents, avoiding Voronoi tessellations and employing gradient ascent for coverage optimization.

Findings

Effective coverage increase demonstrated in simulations

Avoids complex tessellation computations

Applicable to convex regions with altitude constraints

Abstract

The objective in this article is to develop a control strategy for coverage purposes of a convex region by a fleet of Mobile Aerial Agents (MAAs). Each MAA is equipped with a downward facing camera that senses a convex portion of the area while its altitude flight is constrained. Rather than relying on typical Voronoi-like tessellations of the area to be covered, a scheme focusing on the assignment to each MAA of certain parts of the mosaic of the current covered area is proposed. A gradient ascent algorithm is then employed to increase in a monotonic manner the covered area by the MAA-fleet. Simulation studies are offered to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.