Coverage Control for Exploration of Unknown Non-convex Environments with Limited Range Multi-robot Systems

This paper presents a novel methodology for the exploration and monitoring of unknown environments performed by a group of coordinated mobile robots. The proposed methodology builds upon Voronoi-based coverage control methods, with time-varying probability density functions. In particular, we propose a methodology that, exploiting locally available information, allows robots to dynamically update the probability density function in order to drive the robots to explore previously unexplored areas. The proposed control strategy was validated in extensive simulations, and by means of experiments carried out on a group of mobile robots. Results of simulations and experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in leading to the exploration of large portions of the environment .