Online Adversarial Coverage for Multi-Agent Systems

Robotic exploration or Robotic area coverage of unknown environments is an important aspect of research these days. Such type of exploration is called online exploration or online coverage. This paper presents an online coverage technique for adversarial environment, using multiple robots. In adversarial coverage, robots perform coverage in the environment with hazards and threats, which might damage or stop it. In online coverage techniques, coverage task is completed without map. This paper presents an online adversarial coverage technique for covering a dynamic and adversarial environment using hybrid architecture. Hybrid architecture is combination of behavior based architecture and classical architecture. Different Behaviors are designed and some of the basic behaviors are modified for obstacle avoidance, navigation and coverage. Efficient algorithms and data structures are used to monitor threat movement and previously visited locations. These threats and visited locations are combined with obstacle avoidance behaviors. The idea is to use multiple less expensive robots instead of using one expensive robot for covering area, without leaving any part of the area uncovered.