The field of robotics is witnessing significant developments in coverage and control, with a focus on optimizing spatial coverage and improving task efficiency. Researchers are exploring new formulations and algorithms to enhance the performance of robotic systems in various applications, including search and rescue, manipulation, and agriculture. Notably, the integration of optimal transport theory with multi-agent coverage control is showing promise in achieving non-uniform area coverage. Additionally, advancements in wireless power transfer and heterogeneous mobile charging architectures are addressing the energy limitations of wireless sensor networks and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Some noteworthy papers in this area include: The paper on Volumetric Ergodic Control, which introduces a new formulation that optimizes spatial coverage using a volumetric state representation, improving coverage efficiency by more than a factor of two. The paper on Density-Driven Optimal Control, which proposes a novel framework for non-uniform area coverage in decentralized multi-agent systems, achieving significantly improved performance compared to existing methods.