Space coverage control for distributed multi-agent systems with preserved connectivity

This paper discusses the distributed connected coverage problem for a group of mobile agents in 3-dimensional space and with limited-range interactions. A self-deployment algorithm is proposed, which spreads out the agent group while preserving some special core structures of the time-variant communication topologies. It should be pointed out that the core structure keeps the connectivity of the communication topology and can be preserved without hindering the agents from traversing over the maximal distance from their neighbors; thus distributed coverage can be achieved with preserved connectivity. The resulting performance is demonstrated by both theoretical analysis and numerical simulation.