A distributed Deterministic Annealing Algorithm for Limited Range Sensor Coverage

Andrew Kwok and Sonia Martínez
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 19 (4) (2011) 792-804

Abstract:

This paper presents a distributed coverage algorithms for a network of mobile agents. Unlike previous work that uses a simple gradient descent algorithm, here we employ an existing deterministic annealing (DA) technique to achieve optimal convergence values. We replicate the results of the classical DA algorithm while imposing a limited-range constraint to sensors. As the temperature is decreased, phase changes lead to a regrouping of agents, which is decided through a distributed task allocation algorithm. While simple gradient decent algorithms are heavily dependent on initial conditions, annealing techniques are generally less prone to this phenomena. The results of our simulations confirm this fact, as we show in the manuscript.

File: main.pdf

Bib-tex entry:

@electronic{AK-SM:11,
author = {A. Kwok and S. Mart{\'\i}nez},
title = {A distributed {D}eterministic {A}nnealing algorithm for limited-range sensor coverage},
journal= {IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology},
note = {Electronically available. DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2010.2053036}
}