This paper presents a distributed, energy-aware method for the autonomous deployment and maintenance of battery-powered robots within a known or unknown region in 2D space. Our approach does not rely on a global positioning system and therefore allows for applications in GPS-denied environments such as underwater sensing or underground monitoring. After covering a region, our system maintains a formation and uses an arbitrary number of charging stations to prevent robots from fully discharging. Analyzing the topology of the network formed during robot deployment, we generate virtual recharging trees which the robots use to navigate toward a nearby charging station when needed. All robots that leave the formation are replaced by their neighbors, maximizing the effective coverage provided by the system. We demonstrate the capability of our methods using models, a physics-based simulator, and experiments with real robots.

中文翻译：

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电池供电机器人的长期花样形成和维护

本文提出了一种分布式的能量感知方法，用于在2D空间中的已知或未知区域内自动部署和维护电池供电的机器人。我们的方法不依赖于全球定位系统，因此可以在GPS受限的环境中进行应用，例如水下感应或地下监测。覆盖某个区域后，我们的系统将维持编队状态并使用任意数量的充电站来防止机器人完全放电。分析机器人部署期间形成的网络拓扑，我们生成虚拟充电树，机器人在需要时可使用这些树导航到附近的充电站。离开编队的所有机器人均被其邻居替换，从而最大程度地提高了系统提供的有效覆盖范围。