Odor source localization in complicated indoor environments

Abstract

Odor source localization is a topic that continues to attract research attention, and in the past decade, mobile robots have been used to localize odor source. A robot which is capable of odor plume tracing can be employed in many applications, such as the detection of toxic gas, fire at its initial stage and unexploded bombs. Many plume-tracing robots were developed for indoor environments and the testing arena was “clean” of obstacles between the robot and the odor source. However, robots working in real applications are required to avoid collision with obstacles. For instance, indoor environments are normally filled with obstacles which can also affect the odor plume's shape and distribution, making plume tracing indoor a challenge. In this study, we developed a small size plume-tracing mobile robot that can localize odor source under fixed wind direction and fixed wind speed conditions. It can not only safely travel in an obstacle-filled environment but can also localize the odor source without being confused by change of plume shape and distribution.