Connectivity-Preserving Multi-Agent Area Coverage via Optimal-Transport-Based Density-Driven Optimal Control (D2OC)

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel density-driven optimal control method for multi-agent area coverage that guarantees connectivity, improves coverage quality, and supports distributed implementation using Wasserstein distance and convex optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a connectivity-preserving extension of the D2OC framework with a convex formulation that ensures communication and enhances coverage performance.

Findings

Maintains connectivity during coverage tasks.

Achieves faster convergence compared to non-connectivity-preserving methods.

Enhances non-uniform coverage quality in simulations.

Abstract

Multi-agent systems play a central role in area coverage tasks across search-and-rescue, environmental monitoring, and precision agriculture. Achieving non-uniform coverage, where spatial priorities vary across the domain, requires coordinating agents while respecting dynamic and communication constraints. Density-driven approaches can distribute agents according to a prescribed reference density, but existing methods do not ensure connectivity. This limitation often leads to communication loss, reduced coordination, and degraded coverage performance. This letter introduces a connectivity-preserving extension of the Density-Driven Optimal Control (D2OC) framework. The coverage objective, defined using the Wasserstein distance between the agent distribution and the reference density, admits a convex quadratic program formulation. Communication constraints are incorporated through a smooth connectivity penalty, which maintains strict convexity, supports distributed implementation, and preserves inter-agent communication without imposing rigid formations. Simulation studies show that the proposed method consistently maintains connectivity, improves convergence speed, and enhances non-uniform coverage quality compared with density-driven schemes that do not incorporate explicit connectivity considerations.