Distributed coverage estimation for multi-robot persistent tasks

In this paper we address the problem of persistently cover an environment with a distributed group of mobile robots. In contrast to the traditional coverage problem, in this scenario the coverage level of the environment is always changing. For this reason the robots have to continually move to maintain a desired coverage level. In this context, our main contribution is an algorithm that allows every robot to estimate the global coverage function only with local information. We pay special attention to the characterization of the algorithm, establishing bounds on the estimation error for every point of the environment. Additionally, we demonstrate that the algorithm guarantees a perfect estimation in a particular area. Finally, we carry out simulations to test the correctness of the algorithm and evaluate its performance.