Non-Uniform Coverage and Cartograms
Francois Lekien and Naomi Ehrich Leonard
SIAM J. Control and Optimization, Special issue on "Control
and Optimization in Cooperative Networks," Vol. 48, No. 1, 351-372,
2009.
In this paper, we investigate non-uniform coverage of a planar region by a network of autonomous,
mobile agents. We derive centralized non-uniform coverage control laws from uniform coverage
algorithms using cartograms, transformations that map non-uniform metrics to a near Euclidean
metric. We also investigate time-varying coverage metrics and design of control algorithms to
cover regions with slowly-varying, non-uniform metrics. Our results are applicable to design
of mobile sensor networks, notably when the coverage metric varies as data is collected such as
in the case of an information metric. The results apply also to the study of animal groups
foraging for food that is non-uniformly distributed and possibly changing.