Multi-robot Surveillance Through a Distributed Sensor Network

Abstract

Automatic surveillance of public areas, such as airports, train stations, and shopping malls, requires the capacity of detecting and recognizing possible abnormal situations in populated environments. In this book chapter, an architecture for intelligent surveillance in indoor public spaces, based on an integration of interactive and non-interactive heterogeneous sensors, is described. As a difference with respect to traditional, passive and pure vision-based systems, the proposed approach relies on a distributed sensor network combining RFID tags, multiple mobile robots, and fixed RGBD cameras. The presence and the position of people in the scene is detected by suitably combining data coming from the sensor nodes, including those mounted on board of the mobile robots that are in charge of patrolling the environment. The robots can adapt their behavior according to the current situation, on the basis of a Prey-Predator scheme, and can coordinate their actions to fulfill the required tasks. Experimental results have been carried out both on real and on simulated data to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Concepts for 3D Printing-Based Self-Replicating Robot Command and Coordination Techniques

“…Liu, et al [34], for example, presented a control system for a collection of life science laboratory mobile robots. Pennisi, et al [35] presented the use of multi-robot surveillance (for indoor public places) using a distributed sensor network that combines RFID tags, mobile robots, and RGBD cameras. Starke, et al [36] demonstrated close-proximity multi-robot operations for a welding automation application.…”

OpTopNET: A Learning Optimal Topology Synthesizer for Ad-hoc Robot Networks

“…The integration of robotics and communication networks has been led to the realization of unprecedented technologies without which many wide-spread applications of robot networks could not be achieved. Robot networks contribute to a multitude of critical missions such as surveillance [16], search and rescue [18], explorations [15], collaborative communications [1], and mobilization of sensor networks [2]. Mobile networks are inherently ad-hoc, meaning one may exploit their communicational utilities without almost any need for immobile infrastructures.…”

Multi-Agent Robot System to Monitor and Enforce Physical Distancing Constraints in Large Areas to Combat COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

“…For instance, they can be utilized for mobile surveillance, disinfection, delivery, interactive awareness systems, companion robots, vital signs detection, etc. In past research, a wide range of multi-agent robot systems (MARS) based on heterogeneous distributed sensor networks have been proposed for effective and efficient surveillance in multiple scenarios [6,7]. MARS is a system that comprises fixed agents, i.e., sensors fixed at some location, and single or multiple mobile agents, i.e., robots.…”