Compared to robust submodular maximization for set function, new challenges arise when sequence functions are concerned.

The availability and sophistication degree of such services are fair measures of progress for any city. In this context, Geographic information systems " GIS " offers solutions that support the decision - making processes regarding management, planning and distribution of services, ultimately improving the standard of living in cities (Aziz, 2007, p. 11). Investigating services planning standards is one of the most relevant issues concerning human progress regarding its proper definition and needs. Planning standards can be reconsidered by studying the variation in the distribution of geographical phenomena and the characteristi cs of geographic areas. More effort should be exerted in defining these standards parallel to the characteristics of each region. Such efforts will facilitate appropriate allocation s of services and accurate definitions of future developmental efforts. The problem of the study is that the planning standards are not suitable for the characteristics of the Egyptian cities, which include more population and intensive daily use of services. The solution to this problem is to create new planning standards that suit the rapidly changing nature of cities, and to generate these criteria current services and their intensity and the built - up areas are going to be used to reflect the characteristics of the city, taking this abroach is a new way to generate such criteria. This study attempts to derive planning standards for public services in the city of Qena that are compatible with the characteristics of the city, the geographical distribution of the population, the built - up area, and the services therein.

A sensor has the ability to probe its surroundings. However, uncertainties in its exact location can significantly compromise its sensing performance. The radius of robust feasibility defines the maximum range within which robust feasibility is ensured. This work introduces a novel approach integrating it with the directional sensor networks to enhance coverage using a distributed greedy algorithm. In particular, we provide an exact formula for the radius of robust feasibility of sensors in a directional sensor network. The proposed model strategically orients the sensors in regions with high coverage potential, accounting for robustness in the face of uncertainty. We analyze the algorithm's adaptability in dynamic environments, demonstrating its ability to enhance efficiency and robustness. Experimental results validate its efficacy in maximizing coverage and optimizing sensor orientations, highlighting its practical advantages for real-world scenarios.

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High Altitude Balloons (HABs) can leverage stratospheric wind layers for limited horizontal control, enabling applications in reconnaissance, environmental monitoring, and communications networks. Existing multi-agent HAB coordination approaches use deterministic methods like Voronoi partitioning and extremum seeking control for large global constellations, which perform poorly for smaller teams and localized missions. While single-agent HAB control using reinforcement learning has been demonstrated on HABs, coordinated multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) has not yet been investigated. This work presents the first systematic application of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to HAB coordination for distributed area coverage. We extend our previously developed reinforcement learning simulation environment (RLHAB) to support cooperative multi-agent learning, enabling multiple agents to operate simultaneously in realistic atmospheric conditions. We adapt QMIX for HAB area coverage coordination, leveraging Centralized Training with Decentralized Execution to address atmospheric vehicle coordination challenges. Our approach employs specialized observation spaces providing individual state, environmental context, and teammate data, with hierarchical rewards prioritizing coverage while encouraging spatial distribution. We demonstrate that QMIX achieves similar performance to the theoretically optimal geometric deterministic method for distributed area coverage, validating the MARL approach and providing a foundation for more complex autonomous multi-HAB missions where deterministic methods become intractable.

Abstract: In the present work we address the problem of deploying a team of robots in a scenario where some locations of interest must be reached. Thus, a planning for a deployment is required, before sending the robots. The obstacles, the limited communication range, and the need of communicating to a base station, constrain the connectivity of the team and the deployment planning. We propose a method consisting of three algorithms: a distributed path planner to obtain communication-aware trajectories; a deployment planner providing dual-use of the robots, visiting primary goals and performing connectivity tasks; and a clustering algorithm to allocate the tasks to robots, and obtain the best goal visit order for the mission. Keywords: Multi-robot systems, deployment planning, communication-aware planning 1. INTRODUCTION characterize the signal in the environment, considering the variations suffered by the signal in the propagation media. The deployment of robot teams for exploration or environmental monitoring can be executed in many ways.

The utilization of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) for patrolling industrial sites has expanded significantly. These UGVs typically are equipped with perception systems, e.g., computer vision, with limited range due to sensor limitations or site topology. High-level control of the UGVs requires Coverage Path Planning (CPP) algorithms that navigate all relevant waypoints and promptly start the next cycle. In this paper, we propose the novel Fast-Revisit Coverage Path Planning (FaRe-CPP) algorithm using a greedy heuristic approach to propose waypoints for maximum coverage area and a random search-based path optimization technique to obtain a path along the proposed waypoints with minimum revisit time. We evaluated the algorithm in a simulated environment using Gazebo and a camera-equipped TurtleBot3 against a number of existing algorithms. Compared to their average revisit times and path lengths, our FaRe-CPP algorithm approximately showed a 45% and 40% reduction, respectively, in these highly relevant performance indicators.

We propose a distributed control law for a heterogeneous multi-robot coverage problem, where the robots could have different energy characteristics, such as capacity and depletion rates, due to their varying sizes, speeds, capabilities, and payloads. Existing energy-aware coverage control laws consider capacity differences but assume the battery depletion rate to be the same for all robots. In realistic scenarios, however, some robots can consume energy much faster than other robots; for instance, UAVs hover at different altitudes, and these changes could be dynamically updated based on their assigned tasks. Robots' energy capacities and depletion rates need to be considered to maximize the performance of a multi-robot system. To this end, we propose a new energy-aware controller based on Lloyd's algorithm to adapt the weights of the robots based on their energy dynamics and divide the area of interest among the robots accordingly. The controller is theoretically analyzed and extensively evaluated through simulations and real-world demonstrations in multiple realistic scenarios and compared with three baseline control laws to validate its performance and efficacy.

Designing roadside sensing for intelligent transportation applications requires balancing cost and performance,especially when choosing between high and low-resolution sensors. The tradeoff is challenging due to sensor heterogeneity,where different sensors produce unique data modalities due to varying physical principles. High-resolution LiDAR offers detailed point cloud, while 4D millimeter-wave radar, despite providing sparser data, delivers velocity information useful for distinguishing objects based on movement patterns. To assess whether reductions in spatial resolution can be compensated by the informational richness of sensors, particularly in recognizing both vehicles and vulnerable road users (VRUs), we propose Residual Fusion Net (ResFusionNet) to fuse multimodal data for 3D object detection. This enables a quantifiable tradeoff between spatial resolution and information richness across different modalities. Furthermore, we introduce a sensor placement algorithm utilizing probabilistic modeling to manage uncertainties in sensor visibility influenced by environmental or human-related factors. Through simulation-assisted ex-ante evaluation on a real-world testbed, our findings show marked marginal gains in detecting VRUs--an average of 16.7% for pedestrians and 11% for cyclists--when merging velocity-encoded radar with LiDAR, compared to LiDAR only configurations. Additionally, experimental results from 300 runs reveal a maximum loss of 11.5% and a average of 5.25% in sensor coverage due to uncertainty factors. These findings underscore the potential of using low spatial resolution but information-rich sensors to enhance detection capabilities for vulnerable road users while highlighting the necessity of thoroughly evaluating sensor modality heterogeneity, traffic participant diversity, and operational uncertainties when making sensor tradeoffs in practical applications.

Radio Environment Maps (REMs) are crucial for numerous applications in Telecom. The construction of accurate Radio Environment Maps (REMs) has become an important and challenging topic in recent decades. In this paper, we present a method to estimate REMs using Graph Neural Networks. This approach utilizes both physical cell information and sparse geo-located signal strength measurements to estimate REMs. The method first divides and encodes mobile network coverage areas into a graph. Then, it inputs sparse geo-located signal strength measurements, characterized by Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) metrics, into a Graph Neural Network Model to estimate REMs. The proposed architecture inherits the advantages of a Graph Neural Network to capture the spatial dependencies of network-wide coverage in contrast with network Radio Access Network node locations and spatial proximity of known measurements.