Centroidal voronoi partitioning using virtual nodes for multirobot coverage

This paper addresses the problem of Voronoi partitioning using Centroidal Voronoi configuration for a multi-robotic coverage strategy known as Voronoi Partition based Coverage (VPC) algorithm. In VPC, the area to be covered is divided into Voronoi cells and each robot covers the corresponding cell. We use the concept of Centroidal Voronoi Configuration (CVC) to achieve a more uniform load distribution among the robots in terms of the area covered. Instead of the robots moving physically into the CVC, we introduce a concept of virtual nodes, which are deployed into CVC. Once the Voronoi partition is created based on the virtual nods, the robots cover the corresponding Voronoi cells. A gradient based control law has been used for deployment of the virtual nodes. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the proposed deployment and partitioning scheme.