Persistent surveillance using mutually-visible robotic formations

Abstract

We consider the problem of deploying mobile robots to create a mutually-visible formation between stationary and mobile targets in a known environment. A mutually-visible formation is a placement where each agent or target is connected to all others through a sequence of visibility pairings. Mutual visibility enhances radio communications links, and enables other modalities such as optical communications. We discretize the environment in a manner conducive to visibility calculations, and, as targets shift, we use dynamic programming to find formations that preserve the visibility topology and minimize movement.