Multi-robot persistent coverage with optimal times

Abstract

This paper addresses the persistent coverage problem, in which a group of autonomous robots must visit periodically a finite set of interest points and spend some time covering them, which we call coverage time. An optimization problem to calculate the optimal coverage times is formulated, and sufficient conditions for the existence of solution are given. In particular, a linear cost function is considered to solve the problem as a linear program. An iterative algorithm, which runs on the solution, is proposed to reduce the lengths of the predefined paths traveled by the robots in a finite number of iterations while maintaining optimal coverage times. Moreover, path planning is included in the optimization problem, computing specific weights in the cost function, and thus reducing the traveled distances and the total time spent covering. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the approach.