A Multi-Robot Sensor-Delivery Planning Strategy for Static-Sensor Networks

This paper discusses the time-phased deployment of wireless sensor networks, applied to surveillance areas growing in time. The focus herein is on the planning of the time-efficient delivery of static sensors to their designated nodes, given a network configuration. The novelty of the proposed strategy is in that it determines optimal delivery plans for spatio-temporally constrained static-sensor networks using multi-robot teams. The proposed sensor delivery planning strategy starts with an already determined (optimal) network plan specified by sensor placement locations (i.e., nodes) and deployment times. Thus, the goal at hand is to determine the optimal routes for the robots delivering the sensors to their intended locations just-in-time. The travel routes are, thus, determined to maximize spare time for the robots between the nodes. The problem is similar to the multiple travelling salesperson problem, but, with temporal constraints. Namely, sensors must be delivered to their designated nodes at designated (optimized) times in order to maintain the optimal deployment of the network configuration. Furthermore, the strategy is designed to be adaptive to new information that can become available during the search for the mobile target, allowing for re-planning of the sensor network (i.e., new sensors locations and new deployment times). Numerous simulated experiments were conducted to validate the proposed strategy.