Distributed coordination of a network of nonidentical agents with limited communication capabilities in the presence of fixed obstacles

In this paper, a distributed deployment algorithm is proposed for a network of multi-agent systems with limited and nonidentical communication ranges. An operation cost is defined for each agent, and it is aimed to minimize the overall cost function for both cases of an environment with and without obstacles. For the case of an obstacle-free environment, the notion of multiplicatively-weighted Voronoi (MW-Voronoi) diagram is extended to define limited communication MW-Voronoi (LCMW-Voronoi) diagram. A motion coordination strategy is subsequently presented to move the agents in such a way that the cost function over the region associated with each agent is minimized. For the second case, the limited communication visibility-aware MW-Voronoi (LCVMW-Voronoi) diagram is introduced and a proper motion coordination strategy is proposed to achieve the desired objective. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed technique.