Decentralized control of mobile robotic sensors for optimal coverage and connectivity over an arbitrary unknown region

The self deployment of a decentralized mobile sensor network has been addressed in this paper. The mobile robotic sensors cover a bounded and connected two-dimensional arbitrary unknown region. An algorithm with decentralized control law has been developed to self deploy the mobile robotic sensors into a triangular lattice pattern ensuring optimization. The optimization of deployment in terms of minimum number of sensors ensuring 1-coverage and 6-connectivity(wherever possible) has been considered during final deployment of mobile robotic sensors over the arbitrary unknown region. A special consideration in continuation to the recent work has been taken in order to remove the redundant placement of mobile robotic sensors on the boundary of the region and to fully track the bounded smooth region. The concept of strongly connected quotient system of the decentralized control system has been used during line forming mode(s) inside the region. The algorithm is based on simple nearest neighbor rules derived from swarm intelligence. A number of numerical simulations have been done in order to validate the control algorithm.