Source term estimation with deficient sensors: Error analysis and mobile station route design

Abstract

Air pollution monitoring for chemical industrial parks suffers from sensor deficiency. To address this problem, this work focuses on mobile monitoring station solutions to complement the fixed measurement deficiency. Flexibility in measurement location makes the mobile solution advantageous over fixed stations not only in providing sufficient number of measurements to satisfy the traceability condition, but also in the possibility to design monitoring route optimally according to real-time wind directions. By taking these advantages, this work proposes a new method for optimal mobile route design so that the inference of uncertainties on the accuracy of source rate estimation is minimized. Based on the linear relationship between the concentration measurements and source emission rates, the effect of measurement noises on the estimation error is derived as an amplification factor through numerical analysis, then, the optimal monitoring route can be determined by minimizing the amplification. Numerical and real case studies are presented to test the performance of the method. The results suggest that the approach proposed can effectively improve the performance of source rate estimation by optimally choosing the monitoring route.