Dynamic coverage of time-varying environments using a mobile robot — A communication-aware perspective

In this paper, we study the problem of dynamic coverage of a number of points of interest, in a time-varying environment, using a mobile robot. We consider the scenario where the uncertainty at any point of interest, that is not being sensed by the onboard sensor of the robot, is continuously growing. The robot is then tasked with moving along periodic trajectories, continuously sensing the points of interest and transmitting its gathered sensory data to a remote base station. We assume realistic fading channels between the robot and the base station. We then consider a piecewise linear periodic trajectory for the robot and propose a novel approach, based on sequentially solving a mixed integer program and a nonlinear program, to optimally design the trajectory and the TX power profile of the robot. We consider two different cases of a passive and an active robot. Our results show how sensing and communication objectives can be combined to prevent the instability of the coverage task, in realistic fading environments.