An adaptive coverage control algorithm for deployment of nonholonomic mobile sensors

Abstract

We show the Lyapunov stability and convergence of an adaptive and decentralized coverage control for a team of mobile sensors. This new approach assumes nonholonomic sensors rather than the usual holonomic sensors found in the literature. The kinematics of the unicycle model and a nonlinear control law in polar coordinates are used in order to prove the stability of the controller applied over a team of mobile sensors. The convergence and feasibility of the coverage control algorithm are verified through simulations in Matlab. Furthermore, some experiments are carried out using a team of four Pioneer 3-AT robots sensing a piecewise constant light distribution function.