Distributed coordination of multi-agent systems for coverage problem in presence of obstacles

This paper presents new algorithms for distributed deployment of a network of multi-agent systems to minimize prescribed cost function. It is assumed that the so-called “operation cost” of distinct agents can be different. The problem is investigated for both cases of an obstacle-free environment and a fixed-obstacle environment. For the former case, the center multiplicatively weighted Voronoi (CMWV) configuration is introduced, and it is shown to be the optimal configuration. A distributed coverage control is also provided which guarantees that the configuration of the agents converges to this optimal configuration. For the case of a fixed-obstacle environment, the visibility-aware multiplicatively weighted Voronoi (VMW-Voronoi) diagram is introduced and a motion coordination strategy is presented to achieve the desired objective. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in both cases.