  A k-order coverage control problem is studied where a network of agents must
deploy over a desired area. The objective is to deploy all the agents in a
decentralized manner such that a certain coverage performance metric of the
network is maximized. Unlike many prior works that consider multi-agent
deployment, we explicitly consider applications where more than one agent may
be required to service an event that randomly occurs anywhere in the domain.
The proposed method ensures the distributed agents autonomously cover the area
while simultaneously relaxing the requirement of constant communication among
the agents. In order to achieve the stated goals, a self-triggered coordination
method is developed that both determines how agents should move without having
to continuously acquire information from other agents, as well as exactly when
to communicate and acquire new information. Through analysis, the proposed
strategy is shown to provide asymptotic convergence similar to that of
continuous or periodic methods. Simulation results demonstrate that the
proposed method can reduce the number of messages exchanged as well as the
amount of communication power necessary to accomplish the deployment task.
