Visibility-limited coverage control using nonsmooth optimization

Voronoi coverage control is the problem of locating vehicles at the centroid of their Voronoi cell. This problem is often used to model the task of deploying sensors to cover a planar area. Until recently, extensions to cover non-convex regions assumed visibility was never blocked. Nevertheless, visibility is an important consideration when deploying some types of sensors. This paper focuses on the problem of covering a region when non-convexities or holes in the region block visibility. A model of the problem is proposed, along with a method for solving it based on nonsmooth optimization. A convergence analysis is provided and the approach is evaluated through numerical simulations.