The four-robot configuration seems to be the optimal situation with a shadow area of

zero. The five-robot configuration results in a shadow area of zero also, which is an

intuitive result. As more robots are added to the solution, the better the coverage of the

search space. The algorithm converged after cycling through 100 generations of the

genetic algorithm. Plots of the shadow areas versus time are shown in figure 5.5.


- 2 Robots
 3 Robots
 4 Robots
- 5 Robots


0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
 Time (sec)


 Figure 5.5: Map 2 convergence rates for 2-5 robots after 100 generations

The five-robot configuration converged in 15 seconds and the solution of four robots

converged in 10 seconds. A recurring theme in this work is that the genetic algorithm

will provide 'near-perfect' results. That is, the optimal solution will not always be

obtained but something close to optimal will be obtained. The final solution will be

dependent on how long the algorithm runs for and ultimately the number of generations

that are iterated through to get a final solution.