Multi-UGV multi-destination navigation in coordinate-free and localization-free Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

New Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) navigation algorithms in coordinate-free and localization-free Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) are presented. The algorithms are distributed and designed for multi-UGV multi-destination navigation in a sensor network environment. The proposed method eliminates possible multiplicity of destination nodes. A Leader Election Algorithm is used to uniquely identify destination nodes, followed by a Hop-distance Assignment Algorithm where each node stores hop-distances from all destinations. The multi-UGV multi-destination navigation planning problem is formulated as a task allocation problem, where each UGV is considered as an agent and each destination as a task. Since even in the special case of a single UGV navigation, the problem, being similar to the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem, is NP-complete, an allocation algorithm that is suboptimal with respect to the total traveled distance is presented. A communication complexity analysis is provided. Both experimental and simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed navigation method.