A Competitive Algorithm for Online Multi-Robot Exploration of a Translating Plume
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In this paper, we study the problem of exploring a translating plume with a team of aerial robots. The shape and the size of the plume are unknown to the robots. The objective is to find a tour for each robot such that they collectively explore the plume. Specifically, the tours must be such that each point in the plume must be visible from the field-of-view of some robot along its tour. We propose a recursive Depth-First Search (DFS)-based algorithm that yields a constant competitive ratio for the exploration problem. The competitive ratio is 2(S_r+S_p)(R+R)/(S_r-S_p)(1+R) where R is the number of robots, and S_r and S_p are the robot speed and the plume speed, respectively. We also consider a more realistic scenario where the plume shape is not restricted to grid cells but an arbitrary shape. We show our algorithm has 2(S_r+S_p)(18R+R)/(S_r-S_p)(1+R) competitive ratio under the fat condition. We empirically verify our algorithm using simulations.
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