Using time changing weights to improve the performance of multirobot multitarget observation

Multiple targets observation is one of the important application areas in the multirobot domain. When the environment is dynamic and the total coverage area of sensors of all the robots is much smaller than the working area, how to locate the robots to gain max observation area appears to be a significant problem. In this paper, we stated that it is very important to take full advantage of target information to improve the observation performance. Some factors influencing the observation performance are discussed, especially the overlap observation. A new concept, the continuance observation benefit factor (COBF) is defined. Then an adaptive weight based on COBF is designed to decrease the overlap observation area, which takes the place of the set weight to increase the observation performance. Simulation is done to show the efficiency of the method.