Control of Mobile Sensor Networks: A State-of-the-Art Review

This paper presents a state-of-the-art survey in the broad area of Mobile Sensor Networks (MSNs). There is currently a great deal of interest in having autonomous vehicles carrying sensors and communication devices that can conduct ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations. Although this paper will discuss issues common to mobile sensor networks, the applications will generally be associated with autonomous vehicles. Areas that are addressed are: 1. Mission definition languages that allow the human to compose a mission defined in terms of tasks; 2. Communication issues including hardware, software, and network connectivity; 3. Task allocation among the assets generally by a market-based approach; 4. Path planning for individual agents; and 5. Platform motion control using autopilots with and without GPS signals and including collision avoidance.