Tracking and Coordination of Multiple Agents Using Sensor Networks: System Design, Algorithms and Experiments

Abstract

Abstract-This paper considers the problem of pursuit evasion games (PEGs), where a group of pursuers is required to chase and capture a group of evaders in minimum time with the aid of a sensor network. We assume that a sensor network is previously deployed and provides global observability of the surveillance region, allowing an optimal pursuit policy. While sensor networks provide global observability, they cannot provide high quality measurements in a timely manner due to packet losses, communication delays, and false detections. This has been the main challenge in developing a real-time control system using sensor networks. We address this challenge by developing a real-time hierarchical control system which decouples the estimation of evader states from the control of pursuers via multiple layers of data fusion. While a sensor network generates noisy, inconsistent, and bursty measurements, the multiple layers of data fusion convert them into consistent and high quality measurements and forward them to the controllers of pursuers in a timely manner. For this control system, three new algorithms are developed: multi-sensor fusion, multi-target tracking and multi-agent coordination algorithms. The multi-sensor fusion algorithm converts correlated sensor measurements into position estimates, the multi-target tracking algorithm tracks an unknown number of targets, and the multi-agent coordination algorithm coordinates pursuers to capture all evaders in minimum time using a robust minimum-time feedback controller. The combined system is evaluated in simulation and tested in a sensor network deployment. To our knowledge, this paper presents the first demonstration of multi-target tracking using a sensor network without relying on classification.

Scalable and Practical Pursuit-Evasion

“…Our work is distinct from several pieces of prior work, as shown in Table II. The novelty of our proposed work is clear in several dimensions: while other work has explored theoretical bounds on eventual capture [13,14], or pursuit-evasion under constrained geometries [15,19] , or has examined sophisticated control strategies [17,18], our proposed work attempts to minimize the time of captured of a multi-pursuer multi-evader under the pragmatic realization of physical multi-robot games.…”

Minimalist multiple target tracking using directional sensor beams

“…Most tracking methods attempt to estimate the exact position of agents in a continuous state space [18], [19], [29]. In these methods, tracking is done using Bayesian filters, such as the Kalman filter and particle filter.…”

CITRIC: A low-bandwidth wireless camera network platform

“…A WSN consists of a large number of spatially distributed devices with computing and sensing capabilities, i.e., motes, which form an ad-hoc wireless network for communication. Applications of WSNs include building control [13], environmental monitoring [27], traffic control [18], manufacturing and plant automation [32], service robotics [15], and surveillance [21]. The standardization of communication protocols for sensor networks, namely IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee, has facilitated the effort to commericalize WSNs.…”