Fast Distributed Self-Deployment of Multiple Mobile Robotic Sensors with Collision Avoidance for Blanket Coverage

This paper proposes a novel distributed algorithm for deploying multiple robots in an unknown two-dimensional (2D) area to achieve complete blanket coverage. The area is bounded and arbitrary with obstacles and certain assumptions. The robots with limited sensing and communication ranges move in sequence via a grid pattern. The algorithm sets a reference point and drives the furthest robot first to the most distant neighbor in each step with no collisions. Finally, each point of the area is covered by at least one robot very fast which is close to the optimal result. The convergence of the algorithm is proved with probability one. Simulations are used to compare the algorithm with another one in different areas to show the effectiveness and scalability.

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