Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Document Type

Technical Report

Publication Date

6-15-2007

Abstract

In this report we develop a control scheme to coordinate a group of mobile sensors for radiation mapping of a given planar polygon region. The control algorithm is based on the concept of information surfing, where navigation is done by means of following information gradients, taking into account sensing performance as well as inter-robot communication range limitations. The control scheme provably steers mobile sensors to locations at which they maximize the information content of their measurement data, and the asymptotic properties of our information metric with respect to time ensures that no local information metric extremum traps the sensors indefinitely. In addition, the inherent synergy of the mobile sensor group facilitates the temporal "erosion" of such extremum configurations. Information surfing allows for reactive mobile sensor network behavior and adaptation to environmental changes, as well as human retasking.

Language (ISO)

English

Sponsorship

DoE URPR grant DE-FG52-04NA25590

Keywords

Information surfing, mobile sensor networks, radiation mapping

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