Heterogeneous multi-robot trajectories for area coverage optimization

This paper presents a distributed area coverage optimization algorithm for a group of heterogeneous robots operating on a planar area. Distributed control algorithms for solving such area coverage problems are well-established in the literature. However, the real-time implementation of these algorithms requires significant computational resources, especially when the robots operating in the environment are heterogeneous. The main purpose of this paper is to present a modular and cost-effective multithreaded implementation of a distributed area coverage optimization algorithm for a team of heterogeneous mobile robots (as opposed to homogeneous robots used in the prior work of the authors) operating on a two-dimensional area. A scalar measure (called herein the density) of the environment defines a nonuniform metric of the area whose coverage is to be maximized. The multithreaded control algorithm is implemented using the emerging Robot Operating System (ROS). We present a set of computer simulation results using a commercially available robot simulator, V-REP (virtual robot experimentation platform).