A DDDAS Plume Monitoring System with Reduced Kalman Filter

Abstract

A new dynamic data-driven application system (DDDAS) is proposed in this article to dynamically estimate a concentration plume and to plan optimal paths for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with environmental sensors. The proposed DDDAS dynamically incorporates measured data from UAVs into an environmental simulation while simultaneously steering measurement processes. The main idea is to employ a few time-evolving proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) modes to simulate a coupled linear system, and to simultaneously measure plume concentration and plume source distribution via a reduced Kalman filter. In order to maximize the information gain, UAVs are dynamically driven to hot spots chosen based on the POD modes using a greedy algorithm. We demonstrate the efficacy of the data assimilation and control strategies in a numerical simulation and a field test.