Distributed Illumination Problems for Visually-Guided Agents

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The proposed research focuses on algorithms to solve illumination problems,which are a class of geometric optimization problems that focus on where toplace, or how to move, groups of guards in such a way as to illuminateenvironments or targets of interest. The objective is to solve this classof geometric optimization problems, through visually-guided agents, i.e.,robotic agents with line-of-sight sensors and line-of-sight communication.The technical approach is based on a novel set of "incremental partitionand deployment" algorithms that effectively solve the classic art galleryproblem for robotic guards with visibility sensors. Our solutions rely onnovel geometric structures that reflect the environment topology, onnavigation algorithms to explore these structures, and on distributedalgorithms to manage the information gathered via local sensing andcommunication. The broad research objective is to design distributedalgorithms for various illumination and motion coordinationproblems. Useful scenarios arise by considering a hierarchy ofenvironments, a variety of illumination models, and different tasks.The proposed research will impact the emerging technologies of robotic andsensor networks. The focus is on situations where groups of robots withcameras and other controllable sensors will provide pervasive coverage andsensing in urban environments. Example applications could include civilrescue operations and adaptive aerial surveillance. This technology holdsthe promise to affect society at large by facilitating a number of criticaltasks in national security, industrial automation, and novel commercialapplications. This research will achieve broad dissemination throughregular publications as well as through the development of lecture notesand a course on cooperative mobile robotics. The PI will develop softwarefor distributed illumination problems, geometric optimization and algorithmvisualization. The PI will supervise teams of undergraduate studentsperforming senior design projects on robotics and controls relatedto the broad themes of this proposal, including sensor networks, mobilerobot control, and visual sensing. The PI plans to advertise opportunitiesto work on proposal-related projects as widely as possible to attractunder-represented and minority students.