“Rapid Airborne Gas-plume Mapping and Source Localization with Feedforward Gas-sensor Dynamics Compensation” by K. C. Hoffman, J. A. Anderson and K. K. Leang, ASME Letters in Dynamic Systems and Control, Published Online: September 11, 2024 https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4066513
Abstract
This paper focuses on improving the speed, accuracy, and robustness of autonomous aerial-based chemical-sensing for plume mapping and source localization through characterizing, modeling, and feedforward compensation of gas sensor dynamics. First, the dynamics of three types of gas sensors are modeled. Second, the maximum chemical mapping speed is calculated and shown to be inversely proportional to sensor time constant. Third, an inversion-based approach is used to compensate for the sensor dynamics to improve mapping throughput. Results show that dynamics compensation enhances the chemical-mapping speed by over five times compared to the uncompensated case. Finally, to further demonstrate utility, the approach is applied to a particle swarm optimization example for plume-source localization. The improvement is observed by how well the agents converge to the true chemical-gas source location when gas-sensor dynamics are taken into account. Specifically, for a static Gaussian plume source, feedforward compensation leads to 64% average improvement in localization success; and for a dynamic Quick Urban and Industrial Complex (QUIC) dispersion plume source, a 39% average improvement is observed. These results underscore the importance of sensor-dynamics compensation for enhancing mapping and source localization throughput, accuracy, and robustness.
