Minimizing communication latency in multirobot situation-aware patrolling

Abstract

We consider the problem of computing patrolling strategies under communication constraints for a team of autonomous robots employed in repeated surveillance missions on a set of predefined locations. We assume the presence of a communication infrastructure providing only some regions of the environment with a communication link to a mission control center (MCC). We define the problem of computing a joint patrolling strategy that minimizes communication latencies, defined as the delays between inspecting some locations and reporting the outcome to the MCC. We provide and experimentally evaluate a MILP formulation and a heuristic method.