Visibility Overlap Region Based Relay Node Optimal Placement Algorithm in Mobile Robot Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a problem of relay node optimal placement in mobile robot network. The task needs to deploy a group of robots as relay nodes building connectivity between target node and base station in environment containing obstacle. We model the task as a constrained optimization problem, and decision variables are the number of robots and the positions of them. To address this issue, we propose a visibility overlap region based relay node optimal placement algorithm, which is efficient heuristic method. The algorithm divides the problem into three sub-problems, which are path-planning between target node and base station, line-of-sight based relay node positions determined, and visibility overlap region based relay nodes combined and position optimization. We justify our algorithm’s correctness by simulation experiment.