Odor source localization using a mobile robot in outdoor airflow environments with a particle filter algorithm

This paper discusses odor source localization (OSL) using a mobile robot in an outdoor time-variant airflow environment. A novel OSL algorithm based on particle filters (PF) is proposed. When the odor plume clue is found, the robot performs an exploratory behavior, such as a plume-tracing strategy, to collect more information about the previously unknown odor source. In parallel, the information collected by the robot is exploited by the PF-based OSL algorithm to estimate the location of the odor source in real time. The process of the OSL is terminated if the estimated source locations converge within a given small area. The Bayesian-inference-based method is also performed for comparison. Experimental results indicate that the proposed PF-based OSL algorithm performs better than the Bayesian-inference-based OSL method.

[1]  Giulio Sandini,et al.  Gradient driven self-organizing systems , 1993, Proceedings of 1993 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS '93).

[2]  C. Chryssostomidis,et al.  AUV guidance with chemical signals , 1994, Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Technology (AUV'94).

[3]  Takamichi Nakamoto,et al.  Study of autonomous mobile sensing system for localization of odor source using gas sensors and anemometric sensors , 1994 .

[4]  David V. Thiel,et al.  Sensing odour trails for mobile robot navigation , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[5]  David V. Thiel,et al.  A robotic system to locate hazardous chemical leaks , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[6]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Some adaptive movements of animats with single symmetrical sensors , 1996 .

[7]  T. Moriizumi,et al.  Remote sensing of gas/odor source location and concentration distribution using mobile system , 1998 .

[8]  Frank W. Grasso,et al.  Biomimetic robot lobster performs chemo-orientation in turbulence using a pair of spatially separated sensors: Progress and challenges , 2000, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[9]  Neil J. Gordon,et al.  A tutorial on particle filters for online nonlinear/non-Gaussian Bayesian tracking , 2002, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[10]  Rodney M. Goodman,et al.  Swarm robotic odor localization , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[11]  R. Andrew Russell,et al.  A comparison of reactive robot chemotaxis algorithms , 2003, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[12]  Tom Duckett,et al.  Building gas concentration gridmaps with a mobile robot , 2003, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[13]  J.A. Farrell,et al.  Chemical plume tracing via an autonomous underwater vehicle , 2005, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.

[14]  William M. Spears,et al.  Distributed robotics approach to chemical plume tracing , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[15]  Amy Loutfi,et al.  Airborne Chemical Sensing with Mobile Robots , 2006, Sensors (Basel, Switzerland).

[16]  Jay A. Farrell,et al.  Moth-inspired chemical plume tracing on an autonomous underwater vehicle , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[17]  Shuo Pang,et al.  Chemical Plume Source Localization , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics).

[18]  R. Andrew Russell,et al.  Improving the robustness of Naïve Physics airflow mapping, using Bayesian reasoning on a multiple hypothesis tree , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics.

[19]  Lino Marques,et al.  Particle swarm-based olfactory guided search , 2006, Auton. Robots.

[20]  R. Andrew Russell,et al.  Using naïve physics for odor localization in a cluttered indoor environment , 2006, Auton. Robots.

[21]  Massimo Vergassola,et al.  ‘Infotaxis’ as a strategy for searching without gradients , 2007, Nature.

[22]  Qing-Hao Meng,et al.  Probability-PSO Algorithm for Multi-robot Based Odor Source Localization in Ventilated Indoor Environments , 2008, ICIRA.

[23]  Ming Zeng,et al.  Mobile robot based odor source localization via particle filter , 2009, Proceedings of the 48h IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) held jointly with 2009 28th Chinese Control Conference.

[24]  Paolo Dario,et al.  SPIRAL: A novel biologically-inspired algorithm for gas/odor source localization in an indoor environment with no strong airflow , 2009, Robotics Auton. Syst..