Detecting intruders in complex environments with limited range mobile sensors

Abstract

This paper examines the problem of detecting intruders in large multiply-connected environments with multiple robots and limited range sensors. We divide the problem into two sub-problems: 1) partitioning of the environment and 2) a new problem called weighted graph clearing. We reduce the latter to weighted tree clearing and present a solution for finding paths for the robot team that ensure the detection of all intruders with a proven upper bound on the number of robots needed. This is followed by a practical performance analysis. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007.