A Swarm-Based Distributed Algorithm for Target Encirclement with Application to Monitoring Tasks in Precision Agriculture Scenarios

This paper proposes a swarm-based approach for coordinating a multi-agent system (MAS) in a 3D environment to encircle a target for monitoring tasks in precision agriculture. Specifically, we are motivated by the objective of encircling large tree canopies in order to collaboratively gather information on tree health status. This goal is achieved by enhancing classical potential-based swarm design with a novel topology switching policy allowing the desired encirclement behavior to emerge. The resulting interaction protocol requires agents to utilize only local information, ensuring collision-free trajectories without restrictive assumptions on the undirected time-varying graph encoding the network topology. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.