Coordinated deployment of mobile sensing networks with limited-range interactions

This paper presents coordination algorithms for groups of mobile agents performing deployment and coverage tasks. As an important modeling constraint, we assume that each mobile agent has a limited sensing or communication radius. We focus on (1) a comprehensive smoothness analysis of a class of locational optimization functions (including a generalized statement of the conservation-of-mass law), and (2) a discrete-time convergence result based on a recently-developed generalized statement of LaSalle invariance principle. Our coordination algorithms have convergence guarantees and are spatially distributed with respect to appropriate proximity graphs. Numerical simulations illustrate the results.