View Point Planning for Inspecting Static and Dynamic Scenes with Multi-Robot Teams

• Main Author: Budhiraja, Ashish Kumar
• Other Authors: Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Format: Others
• Published: Virginia Tech 2017
• Subjects: Multi-Robot Coordination; Traveling Salesman Problem; Target Tracking
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/78807

We study the problem of viewpoint planning in static and dynamic scenes using multi-robot teams. This work is motivated by two applications: bridge inspection and environmental monitoring using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. For static scenes, we are given a set of target points in a polygonal environment that must be monitored using robots with cameras. The goal is to compute a tour for all the robots such that every target is visible from at least one tour. We solve this problem optimally by reducing it to Generalized Travelling Salesman Problem. For dynamic scenes, we study the multi-robot assignment problem for multi-target tracking. The problem can be viewed as the mixed packing and covering problem. We optimally solve the problem using Mixed Quadratic Integer Linear Program to maximize the total number of targets covered. In addition to theoretical contribution, we also present our hardware system design and findings from field experiments. === Master of Science