Spatial-Temporal Fusion Based Path Planning for Source Seeking in Wireless Sensor Network

Source seeking problem has been faced in many fields, especially in search and rescue applications. We proposed a virtual structure-based spatial-temporal method to realize cooperative source seeking using multi-agents. Spatially, a circular formation is considered to gather collaborative information and estimate the gradient direction of the formation center. In terms of temporal information, we use the formation positions in time sequence to construct a virtual structure sequence. Then, we fuse the sequential gradient as a whole. Experimental results show that, compared with state-of-the-art, the proposed method can quickly and efficiently find the source so that the formation can minimize the movement distance during the moving process and increase the efficiency of source seeking. Numerical simulations confirm the efficiency of the scheme put forth. Compared with state-of-the-art source-seeking methods, the iterative steps of our proposed method are reduced by 20%, indicating that the method can find the signal source with higher efficiency and lower energy consumption, and better robustness.