A New Voronoi-Based Blanket Coverage Control Method for Moving Sensor Networks

Abstract

This brief addresses the blanket coverage problem, in which it is desired to cover a long region by moving the blanket within the boundaries representing the main region. To this purpose, a group of autonomous mobile sensors are deployed aiming at maximizing the sensing performance. The blanket coverage area, which is considered to be a region with changing boundaries, is directed to move along the boundaries of the region. Throughout this process, the agents adapt to the varying coverage area by imposing the dynamics of the boundaries on their respective control law. The presented control law ensures that the agents move toward the centroid of their respective Voronoi cell while taking into account the effect of the moving boundaries. The proposed coverage method deploys the agents within the boundaries of coverage area and ensures the (locally) optimal partitioning for the moving coverage area. Performance of the proposed blanket coverage method is examined via numerical examples that use sections of Ohio river and a border buffer zone.