Energy-Efficient Distributed Target Tracking Using Wireless Relay Robots

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of mobile target tracking, in which a pursuer robot has to capture a mobile target with the aid of multiple wireless relay robots. We assume that the relay robots are able to self-organize to form an ad hoc robotic network when a tracking event is triggered, and act as static multihop relays to disseminate the latest target trajectory they detect to the pursuer. The task of the pursuer is to plan its path to capture the target based on the information received from the relays. Only the first position of target is given to the pursuer initially. No global information and no centralized infrastructure are provided. The heterogeneous robot team has to solve the problem using a distributed approach.We address this challenge by introducing Distributed Relay-robot Algorithm (DRA), which consists of two parts: information dissemination of target trajectory by relay robots using tAdv message and prediction of target position based on the first part. We study DRA using a network simulator and compare the results with Centralized- Control Approach (CCA). The outcomes show that DRA is more reliable, and it is feasible to use multihop communications to aid target tracking in a distributed way.