NetSE: Small: Game Theoretic Coverage and Connectivity Services

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Robotic Sensor Networks (RSNs) are finding increasing use in criticalapplications such as surveillance, environmental monitoring, emergencyresponse and search-and-rescue. With recent advances in embeddedtechnologies, devices that can be used as RSN units are becoming availablefor everyday use. Intellectual Merit:This project focuses on pursuit-evasion games where one or morepursuers tries to "capture" an evader who, in turn, tries to avoidcapture. Robust, provably correct solutions to many RSN tasks (such as coverage and connectivity) can be obtained by modeling them as pursuit-evasion games.Existing solutions to pursuit-evasion games usually assume that(i) all players can observe each other at all times and (ii) there isa centralized authority that coordinates all pursuers. Hence, suchsolutions are not applicable for modeling RSN applications where thenetwork faces severe sensing and communication limitations. Theprimary goals of the proposed work are to understand the effect of theselimitations on the outcome of the game, and to design strategies toovercome them. Broader Impacts:Sensing and actuation are expected to play significant roles in theevolution of information technology and the Internet. Thisresearch will contribute to this evolution in two major ways. First,it will deliver algorithms, tools and techniques to addresscommunication, sensing and actuation issues simultaneously. Second,it will help scientists and engineers participating in this development acquire a broadrange of skills in areas such as algorithms, perception, robotics and communications. Thiswill be achieved through outreach programs and by incorporating this research in PI's courses.