We present a decentralized ergodic control policy for time-varying area coverage problems for multiple agents with nonlinear dynamics. Ergodic control allows us to specify distributions as objectives for area coverage problems for nonlinear robotic systems as a closed-form controller. We derive a variation to the ergodic control policy that can be used with consensus to enable a fully decentralized multi-agent control policy. Examples are presented to illustrate the applicability of our method for multi-agent terrain mapping as well as target localization. An analysis on ergodic policies as a Nash equilibrium is provided for game theoretic applications.
@article{arxiv.1806.05220,
title = {Decentralized Ergodic Control: Distribution-Driven Sensing and Exploration for Multi-Agent Systems},
author = {Ian Abraham and Todd D. Murphey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.05220},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
8 pages, Accepted for publication in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters